Gadgets – Page 6 – I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot

The Advantages of Low-Tech

As I attempt to put this column together, I’m struggling with a number of technological issues. First of all my rather expensive Cox internet connection has been up and down all morning. It wouldn’t do any good to call tech support because I’m just not in the mood to try to convince whatever third-worlder that answers the phone that I’m an experienced geek armed with a CCNA, and have already tried turning the modem off and on.

Additionally, the mailing process stopped on my leased server on which resides this site and a few others that belong to me. I must time the release of this piece to coincide with my (knowledgeable and competent, thank heavens) jtlnet.com tech support getting things straightened out there, in order for my new column notification to make it out to my subscribers.

In short, despite me getting up at 5:30 in order to get some serious internet work done, here it is two hours later and I’m just getting started.

With that, I thought an apt subject for today’s column would be to reminisce on how little tech support issues were a pain back when we were kids.

The first, and foremost, electronic item that sadly was prone to downtime was the one-eyed-monster, aka the TV set.

The TV sets of the 60’s were more reliable than the original models of the early 50’s.

That’s not saying a whole lot.

The state of electronics in the Decade of Change was pretty much not solid, so to speak. Nowadays, the thousands, millions, or even, in the case of computers, billions of tiny connections that are required in order for magical things to take place on the gadgets we use are created on infinitesimal pieces of silicon. The miniaturization of the CPU has been one of mankind’s proudest accomplishments. My Android phone has more processing power than a 1960’s mainframe computer that filled a room and cost a quarter of a million 1960’s dollars.

But back to my non-solid remark, I’m referring to the physical makeup of electronic parts themselves. Solid-state means that there are no moving parts. Everything is done via silicon chips. Back in the day, it was electronic tubes that determined whether or not Leave It to Beaver would be paying our living room an afterschool visit.

And if a tube in the mix failed somewhere (there were a bunch of them, I remember popping off the fiberboard back of the TV and having a look a few times), that TV would sit idle, or perhaps have sound but no picture, or maybe the image on the screen was distorted into nothing but unwatchable video gibberish.

The repairman was busy, we weren’t the only one in town with a TV full of hot glass tubes, so it usually meant a few days with nothing to do but go outside and play, or stay inside and do the same thing, or read, or listen to the radio.

Poor us.

The only other high-tech device in the house was one which my grandparents, born in central Texas prior to 1890, likely didn’t see until they were old enough to be filled with wonder by its sight: the telephone.

Telephone service in Miami, Oklahoma was quite reliable, as I recall. It wasn’t until our 1968 move to the wilds of southwest Missouri that the rigors of spotty phone service made themselves manifest. We didn’t even get a phone until many months after we moved into our converted barn-farmhouse. It took that long for service to reach our rural area. And once we finally got it, all it took for it to disappear was a strong wind blowing a branch across that tiny aerial wire somewhere between us and the main switch, several miles away.

Phone outages really weren’t that big a deal for me, our service only covered the Missouri side, any calls to Arkansas (where most of our friends and acquaintances lived) were long-distance, and believe you me, back in 1969, you were careful about how many long distance calls you made, especially if you were a nine-year-old kid with a Norwegian father.

But the frequent outages did cause mom a lot of anguish, maybe she watched too many Hitchcock films where bad things happened after the phone went dead.

The point is that life very much went on if the TV or phone went on the fritz back then. Dad could still earn a living at his truck garage. Mom could still go visit a neighbor. And I could always read a book or play.

Flash forward to the high-tech world which were were promised was coming in grade school (and they hit it on the nose, although the flying car is still MIA): something we couldn’t even envision in our wildest imaginations back then, an internet outage, can wreak havoc.

I sure hope you get to read this column. And I also hope you get an emailed notification of it, assuming you signed up for it.

The 7up Flickering Can Light

Hey there cola hearted woman
Come and drink from my loving cup
It will melt your cola heart babe,
Cause it is filled with 7up

7up embarked on the Uncola approach with its ads starting about 1970. They went straight for the youth (that would be US!) with its commercials featuring bright lights, rock and roll, and promises of romance.

The one featuring the can light stuck vividly in my mind.

My oldest brother’s wife actually bought me one of the dancing filament 7up lights. I was mesmerized by its rapid flickering, particularly in a dark bedroom with WLS on the radio.

The flickering filament wouldn’t last very long before burning out. And, they were expensive to replace. So most 7up can lights, mine included, ended up with regular bulbs in them.

I was recently delighted to find under my house (built in 1972) a 7up can that looks exactly like the one in the illustration. Perhaps I’ll turn it into a lamp someday.

The Dripping-Oil-Venus Lamp

Ah, the avocado-green-era we all knew and loved, aka the 70’s. The turbulent 60’s were still fresh in our collective memories. But in 1975, the Vietnam War was officially over. Protests were a thing of the past. Nobody had been assassinated in a long time. It was a time of peace and love like we had wished for in the Woodstock era.

So what did we do? We grew our polyester carpets long, We quit turning on, and instead, the country’s youth turned to much more mild-tempered grass as the illegal drug of choice. And the keyword of the laid-back years following the breakup of the Beatles was MELLOW.

So what did we buy with our extra bucks during the mid-to-late-70’s?

Oil-dripping rain lamps.

These bronze-tinted plastic liquid-pumping sources of illumination were sold by the droves in the era that immediately preceded disco music. When you think of a fondue party, you think of a Venus rain lamp providing subtle illumination on the goings-on.

Besides, the illicit effects of inhaling smoke produced by the dried leaves of plants of the cannibas family were significantly enhanced by visual stimuli like drops of oil slowly spiraling down plastic tendrils, or so I am told.

Anyhow, the dripping rain lamps experienced a rather short lifespan, especially when compared to the ever-popular Lava Lamp. The Seven-Up flicker light would be more of an apt comparison, as their reign was only about a year or so.

But they had a quirky appeal all their own. Even though the pump that sent the oily rain to the virtual heavens of the lamp’s lid was prone to breaking down and needing replacement, the lamps’ owners loved them.

Here’s to a short-lived period of time when gas prices were falling, when war was not a regular subject of the nightly news, and when we had some free time and bucks to spend on watching little droplets of oil surrounding a plastic statue.

Stretched Pop Bottles

Stretched pop bottle (Like, very obscure!)

Thanks to Awkward Family Photos for reminding me of this one. Remember walking into the houses of friends and seeing these stretched pop bottles? They definitely had a youthful appeal, so it may have been in the bedroom of a teenager where they might be most readily spotted.

I couldn’t find any history on who first heated up a 7Up bottle and stretched the neck (it was usually 7Up, as I recall). But I know that you couldn’t attend a county fair or carnival in the early 70’s without seeing them offered as prizes at game booths. Stephen C Jackson invented and sold a machine that would make the process easier (and apparently made a mint doing so!).

They might be twisted into spirals, or they might simply be elongated. The straight ones were perfect as vases for long-stemmed flowers made of paper or plastic.

Many had lids, and what was apparently the original contents inside. No doubt they were uncapped, emptied, altered, and refilled and carefully recapped.

The pop bottles stood up well to such abuse, because they were built to be refilled literally hundreds of times. The glass was thick and of high quality.

Looking back, pop bottles were a pain. They cost an extra two cents (unless you brought one to trade in), and needed to be saved afterwards, unless one was so wealthy that he or she didn’t mind squandering enough money to buy two pieces of Dubble Bubble.

But oh, what wonderful artistic statements could be made with them!

Speaking of the fairs, that was actually the ONLY place you could find these puppies “new,” as I recall, but a ready supply of them could be found at neighborhood garage sales. In appreciation of the artistic factor, they would generally be sold at more than face value. Of course, you’d be hard pressed to find a grocery store that would take such a bottle in and pay you two cents for it.

The stretched bottles can still be found, but the problem is not just that they are scarce, it’s that pop bottles in general are now rarities. Sure, you can pay a premium price at the grocery store and get a six-pack of 6 oz. Cokes in a carton, but check out the thin glass they are made of. Nope, that’s not the Real thing.

So the next time you’re out yard-saling, keep an eye out for these vintage pieces of Americana. You might get lucky and grab yourself a piece of history that once resided in a youthful bedroom circa 1971.

Staying Cool Before Air Conditioning

Air conditioning has become a ubiquitous part of our lives. We work in it, drive in it, and live in it in our homes. Even the cheapest built tract homes have central heat and air installed. And most older homes have had air conditioning added, whether central or with multiple window units.

But go back to our childhoods, and odds are there were a lot of windows open and fans running in the summertime.

We thought nothing of speeding down the highway with all four windows down in July. Sure, mom’s hair would get messed up. But she would much rather deal with that than burn up in the heat.

And school in September! There we were, miserable after that much-too-short summer vacation, and to top off the agony of being back in class, it was at least 90 degrees in the room!

Evaporative “swamp” cooler, another heat buster

Most tract homes built before the mid 1960’s simply didn’t include the expensive option of air conditioning. Our home, built in the late 40’s, had a floor furnace for heat. That was it. Summers involved having every window in the house open, and fans running everywhere. At night, a fan would be placed in a window to draw the cooler night air in.

And you know what? We didn’t sit around complaining about how hot we were. We got used to it! It was life.

In 1967, dad sprung for an evaporative cooler like the one pictured. The concept is simple: water runs down big panels on each side of the unit. A large fan inside draws air through the water, evaporating it and getting cooled in the process. The cooler air is circulated through the house. You opened a window at the other end of the house to let the air escape.

They work very well in dry air, not so well where it’s humid. Northeast Oklahoma is a humid place, but the swamp cooler did cool the air down enough that it was a good buy when air conditioning was still prohibitively expensive.

Movie matinees were another welcome summertime diversion. The tickets were discounted, and you got to sit in cool heaven while the movie played. Of course, that made the heat at home seem temporarily unbearable. But, you soon got used to it again.

I get a kick out of folks with narrow ranges of comfort. Every office has them: freezing at 70 degrees, burning up at 73. Ironically, many of these permanently dissatisfied individuals did just fine as kids when the living room temperature was in the upper 80’s.

Spirograph

A collection of plastic gears and colored pens caught the attention of a generation of youngsters in the 60’s and 70’s. If you were patient, you could create some amazing drawings that would look great festooning your bedroom walls. But it did require patience, something that not all of us came by naturally.

A British electronic engineer named Denys Fisher invented Spirograph in 1962. In the tradition of Super Glue, Velcro, and Teflon, it was created for a strictly-business use which ended up making its mark as a lighter-weight product.

Fisher’s family noticed that one of his geared creations aimed at manufacturing industrial products made some cool patterns in you traced their motions. They convinced him that he had one cool toy on his hands, and he listened.

Eventually, Kenner Toys grabbed the design and started marketing it in 1966. It sold untold millions, including two sets bought by my wife and myself when we were tots.

The tool required patience, indeed. My problem, being a hyperactive child (i.e. a future Type A), was that I would go too fast and screw the drawing up. Eventually, I learned to patiently and slowly trace the mathematically set routes and create some cool images.

The best toys would teach a lesson. This one did just that.

You also learned that math didn’t suck. I always hated math, it was by far my worst subject. Yet, the gorgeous patterns you created were based on good old math. The fact fact that you could vary the size of your drawings by using different holes on the geared wheel was an almost transcendental bit of knowledge. You walked away realizing that math could be applied in ways that were pretty cool.

Spirographs are still available in vastly inferior forms to its glory days when it was a very hot item. The cheap Chinese-made versions are an insult to its legacy.

In fact, the numerous Java-based Spirograph applets all over the web are a more honorable tribute to this classic plastic toy. They make full use of the mathematical principals which Mr. Fisher uncovered so many years ago.

Space Invaders Invade

Ever heard of Tomohiro Nishikado? He was probably a significant influence on your life, especially if you are a younger Baby Boomer.

In 1978, when I was eighteen years old, Nishikado created Space Invaders for the Taito Corporation. The game was released in Japan, and proved to be such a hit that it made it over to the US in short order. The lives of teens and younger would never be the same.

Pong was the first video game to see wide release in this country, back in 1974. It was a hit, but graphics technology was improving rapidly. It was time to take electronic gaming up a couple of notches.

Atari’s Tank, released that same year, was the first to show objects that looked “sort of” like what they represented. The next year, Taito released Gunfight, which pitted two cowboys that looked a little more like cowboys than Atari’s tanks looked like, well, you know.

Games kept trickling out, including Atari’s Breakout, released in 1976, designed by a couple of dudes you might have heard of: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. But video games, while popular, were still found mainly in bars, arcades, and bowling alleys.

That changed in 1978. Space Invaders caught the public’s imagination like no video game had yet succeeded in doing. In Japan, the game caused a shortage of yen coins, to which the government responded by quadrupling their production. In the US, its estimated first year revenues were in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

So what was it that made this game so stinking much more popular than its predecessors? Probably a combination of these factors:

Great graphics. The invaders were the most detailed images yet, and were in “color” (actually colored by a green overlay, red at the top for the spaceships).
Potential unlimited play for a quarter. You kept playing until your three lives were expended. An ace could play for fifteen or twenty minutes for 25 cents. Novices, myself included, made a much higher contribution to the hundreds of millions of dollars the game raked in.
Killer sound. Who can forget that bass heartbeat that quickened as the invaders drew ever closer?
The high score history. If you were the baddest Space Invaders player in town, you had proof, immortalized on the screen!
Hackability. The geekier gamesters noticed that you could get higher sores for blasting the spaceship by carefully counting your shots.

Space Invaders brought video games to restaurants, convenience stores, waiting rooms, and just about anywhere else that a person might have five minutes to kill.

Atari licensed Space Invaders for their home systems in 1980. The Atari 2600 began being sold with a Space Invaders cartridge included. The idea that you could play your favorite arcade game on television for free doubled the gaming consoles’ sales that year.

Many games came afterward, but most of them followed the trail blazed by Space Invaders, i.e. the features listed above that it pioneered.

So here’s to a creation by a Japanese engineer that brought the video game industry to its glory achieved during the 1980’s, and which, in good part, continues today.

Slinking Panther Lamps on the TV

Perhaps the single biggest change in the lives of Boomers and their parents was the widespread introduction of the one-eyed monster, and its subsequent presence in the majority of homes in the US.

Along with the television came the necessary accompaniments to the electronic device itself. For instance, many a 50’s or 60’s home had a lamp perched on top of the idiot box designed to provide a pleasant ambient light to accompany one’s viewing.

And in a large number of cases, the lamp took the form of a slinking cat.

Sometimes, the cat would simply be an ornament, with no capability of providing illumination.

But that doesn’t change the fact that, for many Boomer kids, viewing the television included occasionally acknowledging the presence on top of the set of a feline protector of the dear investment that dad had made.

The cats frequently took the form of the depicted image. This particular one had a cavity on its back side that would hold a night light bulb. When switched on, it would provide a nice indirect illumination bouncing off of the living room wall, perfect for cutting down on the unpleasant glare that the set would create in a totally dark room.

Of course, that’s not to say that EVERY TV lamp was shaped like a panther. But when one looks back, it seems like a majority took that form. The panther was popular with everyone, from grandma to Aunt Sophie to dear old mom.

I recall seeing a TV lamp or two from my childhood that took the form of a covered wagon, its canvas providing a perfect shade to soften the night light bulb’s brightness.

Some would take exception as to what constitutes a TV lamp. This particular blogger states that a TV lamp must provide back lighting in order to qualify. In other words, if a shade is required, than the lamp is not truly a TV lamp.

I must respectfully disagree. If it sat on top of a TV and provided subtle light during the Jet Age or the Space Age, it’s a TV lamp.

Interestingly, although my own childhood home was classical 60’s atmosphere, we never had a TV lamp. But I saw them at friends’ houses, along with various figurines that would perch upon the wooden cabinet that housed the electronic works.

And yes, many a figurine was a slinking panther.

The panther pictured at the beginning of this article was a gift from my daughter. It’s hand-carved onyx from Mexico. However, many of the intimidating predators were either made of cast glass or painted ceramic.

Like so many of the common household objects we grew up with, vintage TV lamps are hot collectibles. At presstime, I spotted a black panther indirect lamp from the 50’s on eBay with a buy-it-now price of $39.99. That particular lamp probably cost less than five bucks new, forty bucks is certainly a reasonable price for such a piece of history.

The problem is that many of us have sprung for thin-paneled high-def TV’s, which have finally become affordable enough to supplant the bulky tubed models that we have had from time immemorial.

As nimble as panthers are, it’s nigh impossible for one to sit on top of a 48″ LCD screen.

Thanks to TVLamps.net for help in researching this piece!

Silly Putty

WWII brought about shortages of many basic commodities. One of these was rubber. Rubber was needed for military purposes, and there wasn’t enough of it.

A Scottish engineer named James Wright was looking for a man-made rubber substiitute. He was trying all sorts of mixtures of chemical compounds at the General Electric laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut.

Wright combined boric acid and silicone oil in one experiment. To his delight, it polymerized into a rubbery substance! He excitedly shared his creation with his employers and they began sending samples to other engineers all over the world, looking for a proposed use of the hard-won artificial rubber.

The results were silence. Not one practical idea for the bouncing putty emerged from the educated minds.

Nobody could think of what you could use the rubbery blobs for, but all enjoyed playing with them very much.

Peter Hodgson, an unemployed advertising man, was the man behind the marketing of Silly Putty. Hodgson had marketed the bouncing putty for a New Haven toy store. It sold well. But the store’s owner decided not to market it any more for some strange reason. So he borrowed some cash and purchased a large quantity of the goo from GE for $150. He also purchased a bunch of little plastic eggs and put a dollop of the putty in each one. He sold them for a buck a pop.

At the New York International Toy Fair in 1950, he introduced Silly Putty to the world. It was well received, and sales were steady, but not spectacular.

Then, in August, Silly Putty received a boost similar to the one Yours Truly was fortunate to get earlier this year with the mention on CBS’s The Early Show. In Hodgson’s case, it was an ad in The New Yorker extolling the bouncy putty. Within three days, he had received a quarter of a million orders!

Then, the Korean conflict almost killed his thriving business. Government restrictions on silicone usage in 1951 forced him to carefully parcel out 1500 lbs. of Silly Putty. The next year, restrictions were lifted, and production ramped back up.

Silly Putty appeared in television commercials beginning in the 60’s, and that caused sales to climb ever higher.

Interestingly, Silly Putty saw the demographic of its customers reverse early in the game. When it was introduced, it was a novelty that appealed to grownups, accounting for 80% if its sales. But within five years, the buyers were 80% children! The ratio has stayed there ever since.

Silly Putty could bounce. It could stretch. It could flow slowly like a thick liquid. And, of course, it could pick up ink, as in images from comic books and newspapers.

It was (and still is) small, cheap, and perfect for lots of imaginative uses. It’s also completely useless for any practical purpose other than entertainment. But it’s absolutely perfect for that.

And today, an old goat who just turned 48 keeps a container of Silly Putty in his desk drawer to play with during conference calls and the like.

It’s as much fun now as it was about 1967.

Robots on TV

CRUSH! KILL! DESTROY!

With those words, The Robot on Lost In Space would begin the terrifying act of waving his (I guess The Robot was a he) arms. When those arms waved, you’d better clear the area. That meant rays were about to be shot and explosions were about to be set off as the mechanized bodyguard of the Robinsons was about to get good and mad.

We grew up with all sorts of robots gracing our black-and-white TV’s. My personal favorite was the Lost in Space model (and no, his name wasn’t Robby. Robby will rate his own future column). Of course, 1960’s TV foxes June Lockhart and Angela Cartwright didn’t exactly keep me away from the show, either.

My best buddy had a miniature LIS robot, and it was pretty cool. Additionally, on the schoolyard at recess one of our favorite pastimes was walking around in robotic fashion, waving our arms and hollering, well, you know what we were hollering. 😉

Robots were pretty easy to make. All it took was a suit made of metallic parts, perhaps even wooden boxes spray-painted to look metallic, big enough for a man to fit in. Add some battery-powered flashing lights and a robotic-sounding voice, and you had yourself a star for a kiddie show.

Thus, many of us Boomers have memories of Saturday afternoon shows featuring local TV station personnel, including, possibly, the sportscaster in a robot suit.

The photo is from the Big Bill and Oom-A-Gog show, broadcast on Tulsa’s KVOO in the 60’s. Thanks again to my buddy Mike Ransom over at Tulsa TV Memories for the image.

Channel 2 came in a little fuzzy at my house, but I still remember the name Oom-A-Gog, so I must have caught an episode or two. That robot certainly looks familiar. As Mike’s article points out, he was seen at many televised Tulsa events of the decade.

Not sure if it was Oomy, maybe a reader can help, but I recall a local TV robot singing “Bingle Jells” around Christmastime one year.

Weird, wonderful stuff.

There were robots in the cartoons, too. Perhaps the greatest of them all was Rosie, from The Jetsons.

My all-time favorite SF book is Robert Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer. This amazing little novel details the story of an inventor who builds (and loses) a fortune based on two models of robots that assist in household duties. Indeed, the idea of a robot like Rosie, who keeps things neat and in order at her (no doubt about what gender this robot is) futuristic home seems like a very practical place for humans to some day utilize robotic technology.

Rosie had lots of attitude, like all great fictional robots. She even had a love life, of sorts, as I recall that she had the hots for another (presumably male) robot.

Nowadays, robots are commonplace in industrial applications. And shades of Heinlein’s Chore Girl, there are robotic vacuum cleaners that run all over the house on their own looking for dirt. There is even a self-willed lawnmower.

But hey, it’s the 21st century already. Where’s the bodyguard I was promised? Where is the automaton playmate that our grandkids were supposed to have? Indeed, where’s our metallic maid?

I guess we’ll have to settle for the one prediction that did come true: a computer in every home.