Category: Tech

The Price is Right

rca color tv

My friend Sam recently purchased a 50-inch Panasonic plasma HDTV for $2500. There were rebates and side deals for installation, but the bottom line is, that’s how much he spent.

And that got me thinking. Is that a lot of money for a TV set? Well, sure it is, but how does it compare to the first color TV my family owned? My father bought an RCA color console in 1967. The first program I ever watched on it? Don’t ask! OK, I’ll tell you. It was My Mother the Car.

Dad says to the best of his recollection the set cost $450. Running that amount through a few online inflation calculators, in today’s dollars that comes out to $2714. So it would seem that Sam’s purchase isn’t all that extravagant.

Backtrack

I Feel Fine

Friday, December 8, has no entry. It’s blank. The day that John Lennon was killed in 1980. I’d like to say I did that intentionally, to symbolize the space that could never be filled; but, the fact is, I screwed up.

The first Beatles song that I was aware as being “a John song,” was “I Feel Fine.” I’ve always considered “I Feel Fine” to be very innovative, and not just for the guitar feedback intro. To me it represents the point when The Beatles started to really break away musically from Beatlemania.

The audio player has the original single, 42 years old, that belonged to my big sister. Perhaps it still does, but she’ll never get it back! 😉 When that finishes, a second track will kick in with take 6 of the instrumental for “I Feel Fine.” This one you won’t find on “Anthology.”

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/DEC06/IFeelFine45.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/DEC06/IFeelFine.mp3]

Technical note: Listen to the cymbals in the left channel of the studio session recording. Hear the smearing and slurping effect? The original is perfectly clear and clean. This is a good example of where 128 Kbps MP3 comes up short.

Hackers On The Net – 1

This is the start of the most significant blog posts I can ever possibly make. It’s about the most incredible and amazing magazine article I ever read, or ever could read, published in my lifetime. It predicted the future with uncanny accuracy. It’s about people who said, “This is what we are going to do.” And they did it.

Let me show you an example of what I’m talking about. Here is a laptop for accessing the Net.

terminal.gif

The year? 1972. That isn’t a typo. I’m talking about the year of the Watergate break-in. More in Part 2, coming up.

Now you’re playing with power!

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Movies/Wordpress/NOV06/Wizard.flv 425 240]

NOTE: This is a special guest blog written by honorable son Eric:

 

17 years before Nintendo’s motion-sensing Wiimote/Nunchaku, there was the Power Glove for the NES. An interesting early experiment in gaming technology, it was a barely functioning “glove” that sensed your arm and finger motions and let you control games with them.

In stark contrast to the Wiimote’s small and slim sensor bar, the Power Glove required that you place these three somewhat bulky sensors on the corners of your TV. It sold fairly well due to a successful marketing campaign, but it was totally impractical to use when compared to the normal controller.

The Power Glove was immortalized in the 1989 movie The Wizard, starring Fred Savage and a ton of Nintendo product placements. The clip above contains the infamous scene!

“I love the Power Glove. It’s so bad.” That quote can be taken in several different ways, don’t you think?
 

Continue reading Now you’re playing with power!

Picture This

Edna Mae Horner

The history of radio technology is clearly understood. There is little doubt as to who did what technically, and who did what to whom. Television has a much muddier picture, because there were many people working independently on its creation.

Edwin Armstrong made AM radio practical and he invented FM radio. Philo Farnsworth invented purely electronic (as distinct from mechanical) television. Both men were destroyed by David Sarnoff, a founder of RCA and its longtime chairman. More about “General” Sarnoff later.

AT&T — the original Ma Bell — had one of the labs that was trying to come up with a working TV system. In April, 1927, two months before my late mother was born, AT&T demonstrated mechanical television with 50 lines of resolution. Click here to read a bit about it, and see a simulation of how the picture may have looked. The photo above is of Edna Mae Horner, “one good-looking girl with fluffy hair,” who appeared on camera during the demonstration.