Back in the good ol' days...
Sunday, in the critical care waiting room, Paul picked up a Popular Science — a rare find among legions of Reader's Digests and National Geographics piled on empty chairs.
He read it for a few minutes with a funny look on his face before checking the cover and realizing it was the December 1990 issue. So, in the interest of historical preservation, he stole it from the waiting room. (Don't worry — we left plenty of new ones to make up for it.)
It was the 3rd annual "Best of What's New" issue featuring "the year's 100 greatest achievements in science and technology."You know, things like DAT. And Lynx. And Super Famicom. And 64-mb RAM chips. Plus, Windows 3.0 for you Microsofties out there, and Apple Classics and LCs for you Macheads.
I scanned the best of the What's New feature — plus several ads — and stuck them in this file. The scanner seems to be dying slowly, but I'll be adding a few more over the next couple of days: graphing calculators ($250+), the Galileo spacecraft, and brand-new laser guns used by police to foil radar detectors.
I will not, however, scan the 22 ads for cable TV descramblers (yes, I counted). Not even the one that requires a signed affidavit declaring the buyer will only use the box "on cable TV systems with proper authorization from local officials or cable company officials in accordance with all applicable federal and state laws." Cable descramblers are illegal, and illegal things are bad, mmkay?
posted by Kate at 9:14 AM
Copyright 2001-2009, L.K.C.S. It's MINE, all MINE. If you wanna use it, gimme credit and a link, okies? And don't run with scissors, because you're just going to poke somebody's eye out with that thing. No, really. 
5 Comments:
The average issue of Popular Science still contains at least 22 ads for descramblers, only they're for satellite TV now.
I think my favorite ads back when I subscribed in high school were the ones to build your own helicopter without an FAA license. If that's the case, then you'd have this helicopter hanging out in your backyard because you sure as hell couldn't fly it.
i had one of those really old macintoshes when i was a kid. you could use a word processing program or play brickles.
actually, i still have it. it's never crashed in the, oh, twelve years i've owned it. that's the kind of dependibility i like.
Kate ~ I take it Paul will hunt high and low if he discovered a particular book would help him solve some crazy equation or answer long-sought after info??
Hehe jus' like me!
De ~ Then again, you could make the *first* real-life Airwolf. :)
Grrface ~ I had a cool game The Dark Heart of Uukrul. Point is, while my pc crashed occasionally, the game never did.
I'm with you on this one, far as games r concerned!
My favorite ad is one I hear on some radio stations here, one for a radar detector that tells the possible buyer "you won't get a ticket or return the product" then proceeds to claim that their product "encourages drivers to slow down while helping them to NOT GET CAUGHT as they LEARN to slow down" Ummm, yeah. RIIIIIGHT...
Wow, $1,500 for a computer with 1MB of ram (expandable to 8MB!). My iPod has 60GB. Heck my old iPod had 15GB. In 1990, an iPod would have been the size of a refrigerator, would have only played one album (K-TEL's Super Hits of the '70s), and cost ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
Post a Comment
<< Home