Gadgets Then and Now

Mobile Phones

Then: In 1983, Motorola's DynaTAC (Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage) 8000X was the world's first commercially-released mobile phone, with a price tag of U$D3995 equivalent to U$D8,772.59 in today's dollars. Motorola spent 15 years and over U$D100 million developing the technology. The DynaTAC 8000X allowed 30 minutes of talk time, took 10 hours to charge, weighed 1.75 lb., and stood 13 in. high

Now: The DynaTAC has long been forgotten, with pocket-size touch phones like the Blackberry Torch, Droid X, and iPhone 4 dominating the market.

TVs

 Then: The television was first introduced to the American public at the 1939 World's Fair. The outbreak of World War II delayed commercial network programming in the U.S. until the late 1940's. A popular black-and-white model, the 1948 Admiral Model 9A111, had a 7 inch screen encased in a large metal box four times the screen size. The 1948 Admiral Model 9A111 cost U$D2,495 (U$D22,642.49 in today's money!)

Now: Watch hundreds of channels of HDTV on a 50' inch 3D Sony, a 42' inch Panasonic plasma, a Samsung or Sharp LCD in your living room.


Game Consoles

 Then: Nolan Bushnell founded Atari in 1972, but it didn't become big in homes until 1975 — when Atari started selling home versions of Pong, a two-dimensional sports game which (sort of) simulated a game of table tennis. Pong helped Atari become a household name and introduced very basic, at-home video games to the masses.

Now: Play Halo with friends in different countries, watch an HD movie on Blu-ray, play tennis, lose weight — all through your PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii or XBOX.



 Memory

Then: The first floppy disks were invented by IBM to store data and programs. Floppy disks came in 8 inch, 5 1/4 inch and 3 1/2 inch forms and were used for data storage from the mid-1970's to the late 1990's. The floppies held anywhere from 1.44 MB to 6MB worth of data.

Now: A micro SD drive that hold gigs of data can fit conveniently on a keychain.
Computers

 Then: One of the earliest computers was ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first true all-purpose electronic computer. Unveiled in 1946, it was a monstrous 30-ton machine with 6000 switches, 18,000 tubes and cabinets, and occupied an entire room.

Now: Take your pick — super slim laptops, ultra light Netbooks, iPads and soon-to-come Android tablets.

Video Cameras


Then: In 1956, Ray Dolby, Charles Ginsberg, and Charles Anderson invented a video camera that was the first machine to record both image and sound. The machines sold for U$D75,000 a piece and only sold to large TV networks until the 80's. The first commercial color video camera to utilize a completely solid-state image sensor called a charge-coupled-device (CCD) was developed by Sony in 1980.

Now: Make homemade movies with an HD Flip Video camera or hand-held Panasonic camcorder that can easily fit in any pant pocket.

Audio Listening Devices

 Then: Though Steve Jobs' iPods are the most popular MP3 players around, the person most well known for bringing MP3 players to the mainstream is Nathan Schulhof. Schulhof is often referred to as the "father of the MP3 player industry" with the Audio Highway player. Audio Highway was the first company to announce a portable MP3 player that let users download content. Audio Highway won an innovations award for the Listen Up player at the CES show in January 1997. Of course the first portable audio listening device to go mainstream was the Sony Walkman TPS-L2. The portable stereo system was first introduced in Japan in 1979 and created a whole new category of personal, mobile music.

Now: iPods now have most of the market share for personal MP3 players. Players like the SanDisk Sansa and Microsoft Zune offer buyers a cheaper alternative to their Apple competitors.

Cameras

 Then: Alexander Wolcott invented the first camera, a design he patented in 1840. However, George Eastman brought photography and cameras to the general public around 1885. Eastman called his first camera the 'Kodak.' The 'Kodak' was a box camera with a fixed lens and single shutter speed. The 'Kodak' had enough film for a hundred exposures and had to be sent back to the factory for processing.

Now: Get instant pictures with a Canon DSLR that features full HD (1080p) video recording or a touch screen Sony Cyber-shot TX9.

Vacuum Cleaners

 Then: In 1907, William Henry Hoover produced the first commercial bag-on-a-stick upright vacuum cleaner in Ohio, USA. He bought the design patent from his wife's cousin, James Murray Spangler, who had tried to put together an electric fan, a box, and one of his wife's pillowcases to loosen debris. Hoover redesigned the machine with a steel casing, casters, and attachments, and the rest was cleaning history.

Now: Self-vacuuming gadgets like the iRobot Roomba, the Mint, and the Dyson DC06 help shorten your chore list.

Typewriters

Then: The Blicksenderfer Manufacturing Company produced the first electric typewriter in 1902. Typewriters didn't reach mass market until much later — when IBM released the Electric Typewriter Model 01 in 1935. Generation X learned to type on a variation of this model until desktop computers made them virtually extinct.

Now: Macbook Air, Laptops, netbooks, desktop computers.