Transistor Radio Reminds me...

[Missourian]

how far technology has progressed in my lifetime.

Today I found a pocket transistor radio at the flea market just like the one I had when I was a kid.

It's black plastic (cellulose I think) and boxy...about three by four by two with a stainless steel face.
It reminded me how amazed I was at the time to be able to carry battery powered music around with me everywhere I went. It was nothing short of a modern marvel...the beginning of a new age.

And today, thirty plus years later I have a Blackberry phone/mini-computer/mp3 player/GPS/calculator/Ebook reader/address book/Enewspaper/notebook/camera/camcorder/video player that I totally took for granted...until I was reminded how far we've come by a pocket transistor radio.

 

[Dis]

how far technology has progressed in my lifetime.

Today I found a pocket transistor radio at the flea market just like the one I had when I was a kid.

It's black plastic (cellulose I think) and boxy...about three by four by two with a stainless steel face.
It reminded me how amazed I was at the time to be able to carry battery powered music around with me everywhere I went. I nothing less than a modern marvel...the beginning of a new age.

And today, thirty plus years later I have a Blackberry phone/mini-computer/mp3 player/GPS/calculator/Ebook reader/address book/Enewspaper/notebook that I totally took for granted...until I was reminder how far we've come by a pocket transistor radio.

LMAO! I used to sleep with one under my pillow, because I liked falling asleep to music.. Batteries only lasted about 3 nights...

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Remember those things. They were the ultimate in cool

I also remember when Motorola advertised the first "tubeless" TVs. The picture tube was still there, but all the rest of the electronics were on cards. We didn't get one for quite a while. In those days we kept the clocks five minutes ahead, because when it came time for Hogans Heros or I dream of Jeanie, it took 5 minutes for the TV to warm up enough that we would get a picture.

 

[xsited1]

That goes way back. During that time, Michael Jackson was black and Barack Obama was Kenyan.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Who here remembers IBM cards?

Social security checks were printed on them.

The gas company and electric company here printed their bills on them

All of the sudden, they vanished like snow from the desert

 

[Mr. H.]

Transistor radios smell good.

Yeah those IBM punch cards. I used to do computer programming with those in college LOL.

 

[Dis]

Who here remembers IBM cards?

Social security checks were printed on them.

The gas company and electric company here printed their bills on them

All of the sudden, they vanished like snow from the desert

Ok, at least I'm not THAT old.

At least, I don't remember them...

 

[xsited1]

Transistor radios smell good.

Yeah those IBM punch cards. I used to do computer programming with those in college LOL.

I missed the punch cards because I had my own terminal connected to the mainframe in the Physics department. It was 900 baud. When the words scrolled down the page, you almost couldn't read them because they moved so fast.

 

[Dis]

Transistor radios smell good.

Yeah those IBM punch cards. I used to do computer programming with those in college LOL.

I missed the punch cards because I had my own terminal connected to the mainframe in the Physics department. It was 900 baud. When the words scrolled down the page, you almost couldn't read them because they moved so fast.

Crap. I had a little white toggle switch hooked up to a computer, and phone line, and it was 300 baud. Maybe I am old.

 

[uscitizen]

I remember when we moved up to 300 baud.

Man it was FAST!

 

[Article 15]

Sorry 'bout the thread jack but any opportunity to post some 311 needs to be taken advantage of ...

[YOUTUBE]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CT2omTYflBc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CT2omTYflBc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]​

 

[Dis]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgWvxNh5bSs]YouTube - Korn-Twisted Transistor(lyrics)[/ame]

 

[froggy]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KnxSE09EnQ]YouTube - Regency TR-1: The First Transistor Radio[/ame] Remember these.

 

[froggy]

how far technology has progressed in my lifetime.

Today I found a pocket transistor radio at the flea market just like the one I had when I was a kid.

It's black plastic (cellulose I think) and boxy...about three by four by two with a stainless steel face.
It reminded me how amazed I was at the time to be able to carry battery powered music around with me everywhere I went. I nothing less than a modern marvel...the beginning of a new age.

And today, thirty plus years later I have a Blackberry phone/mini-computer/mp3 player/GPS/calculator/Ebook reader/address book/Enewspaper/notebook that I totally took for granted...until I was reminder how far we've come by a pocket transistor radio.

LMAO! I used to sleep with one under my pillow, because I liked falling asleep to music.. Batteries only lasted about 3 nights...

No wonder your so cold, if thats all you had to sleep with.

 

[editec]

My pride and joy, back in 1960, was getting a huge old radio and record player combination..a Sylvania. It was build, I think, sometime in the 40s, The record player ran at 78 and 33 1/3.

It was about 2/5 ' x 2.5' x 2.5' and probably weighed as much as I did at the time.

All tubes, of course, but it could pick up distance stations like from Cuba, Chicago and Quebec


I lived in Pennsylvania.

Mostly I listened to WABC out of New York back then, as that was about the only rock and roll stations woth listening to.

Back then rock and roll on the radio was sort of uncommon.


I remember those first transitor radios, too. They came out when I was in about 6th grade.

You could put them in your front shirt pocket and they came with an ear plug spkeaker, which was really cool technology at the time.



Hye, I'n so old I can remember the first television program I ever watched, (Captain Video! )and the first movie, in fact the first moving picture I saw, too. (Snow White and the Seven Dwarves).

It's amusing to me that today's technology was science fiction technology when I was a kid.

 

[Dis]

how far technology has progressed in my lifetime.

Today I found a pocket transistor radio at the flea market just like the one I had when I was a kid.

It's black plastic (cellulose I think) and boxy...about three by four by two with a stainless steel face.
It reminded me how amazed I was at the time to be able to carry battery powered music around with me everywhere I went. I nothing less than a modern marvel...the beginning of a new age.

And today, thirty plus years later I have a Blackberry phone/mini-computer/mp3 player/GPS/calculator/Ebook reader/address book/Enewspaper/notebook that I totally took for granted...until I was reminder how far we've come by a pocket transistor radio.

LMAO! I used to sleep with one under my pillow, because I liked falling asleep to music.. Batteries only lasted about 3 nights...

No wonder your so cold, if thats all you had to sleep with.

I was 6, you moron.

 

[editec]

LMAO! I used to sleep with one under my pillow, because I liked falling asleep to music.. Batteries only lasted about 3 nights...

No wonder your so cold, if thats all you had to sleep with.

I was 6, you moron.

Late bloomer, eh?

 

[blastoff]

I remember reading Dick Tracy in the Sunday comics that came with the newspaper.

Dick had a radio strapped to his wrist that looked like a watch. He'd talk in to it or receive messages, from headquarters I guess. Imagine that, a tiny wireless communications device.

 

[froggy]

LMAO! I used to sleep with one under my pillow, because I liked falling asleep to music.. Batteries only lasted about 3 nights...

No wonder your so cold, if thats all you had to sleep with.

I was 6, you moron.

See what happens when you don't give out all the information.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

I remember reading Dick Tracy in the Sunday comics that came with the newspaper.

Dick had a radio strapped to his wrist that looked like a watch. He'd talk in to it or receive messages, from headquarters I guess. Imagine that, a tiny wireless communications device.

Ah, Chester Gould couldn't draw a scratch, but he had the neatest gadgets.

BTW, it wasn't a radio, it was a TV watch. We are sort of there, almost, with things like Skype and so on that can do two way telephony. but watch size is still not quite there.

And the space station was pretty cool too. Well, it was clunky looking, but everything Gould drew was clunky looking.

but do you remember the size of the comics? How much bigger everything was? And the artists didn't have resort to cheats because some newspapers crop off the top line on the sunday.

OTOH, most of what was out there was lame. Prince Valiant?! the amount of real estate that took up on sunday was criminal.