Retro Thing

Motorola Dynatac 8000X - Igniting A Mobile Communication Revolution

I just realized that I've managed to go months without mentioning a mobile phone on Retro Thing. That's quite an accomplishment, considering the never-ending stream of press releases for "groundbreaking new models" that parade across the front page of many technology blogs. Let's revisit Motorola's first handset from 1983, the awesomely old-school $3995 Motorola DynaTAC 8000X.

Here's what Retrobrick has to say about the 8000X: "In 1983 the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X received approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and become the world's first commercial handheld cellular phone. When it was made available for purchase just a few months later on March 6 1983 it ignited a demand for personal wireless communication. Everyone wanted to be the first to get their hands on these awesomely unwieldy portable analogue brain-fryers."

If you're feeling really nostalgic, Retrobrick will cheerfully sell you one of these classics for a mere £29.

Read more about the Moto 8000X at Retrobrick

Oddball Micros: Texas Instruments TI-74 Basicalc

I'm having a feeling of deja-vu while writing this, because the TI-74 runs a stripped-down version of the BASIC interpreter in Texas Instrument's TI 99/4A home computer and is a close cousin of their ill-fated CC-40 pocket computer.

Unlike the CC-40, the TI-74 could save program data to cassette tape for long-term storage. It offered 8K of battery-backed RAM and a 31 character LCD display (which scrolled to 80 columns) -- just enough to write and run useful programs.

The 74 could be used as a standard scientific calculator with 10 programmable memories and 12-digit precision (one of my gripes about the early Sharp pocket computers was that while they were cleverly programmable, their calculator mode was no match for a cheap dedicated scientific). It ran on 4-AAA batteries, ensuring that a supply of electricity was readily available. Because of its versatility, the TI-74 remained on the market from 1985 through the early 1990s.

Texas Instruments TI-74 (99er.net)

Oddball Micros: Amstrad NC100, An early 1990s Notepad

The Amstrad NC100 looks a lot like Radio Shack's TRS-80 Model 100, but they're two quite different machines. The NC100 was introduced in 1992 at a price of £199. Amstrad advertised it with the slogan, "If you can't use this new computer in five minutes, you'll get your money back." It included a word processor (with 48,000 word dictionary), BBC BASIC programming, calculator, diary, address book, and clock. There was no built-in storage -- you used a serial cable to transfer data from the 64KB of battery-backed RAM to another machine.

The NC100 was followed by the much more practical NC200 in late 1993. The new model offered twice the memory (128K) and a built-in floppy drive, making it much more useful. It also doubled the size of the screen to 80 characters x 16 lines, and included a backlight. Machines like this rarely come along anymore, which is a pity -- they serve some people's needs extremely well.

Amstrad NC100 notepad computer info

Sharp Wizard OZ-7000 Personal Organizer

If you traveled extensively by air in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was hard to miss the illuminated poster-sized advertisements for Sharp's OZ Series of personal organizers. With one of these, even the most harried and befuddled account executive could become a model corporate citizen. Or so they claimed when they submitted the justification for this technological wonder on their expense forms.

The Sharp Wizard OZ-7000 was released in 1989, could communicate with PCs and Macs, and offered a 40 x 16 B&W LCD display, card expansion slot, and zillions of buttons on its unusual non-QWERTY vertically-oriented keyboard. It had a built-in array of personal productivity applications, including a memo pad, phone book, calendar, and scheduling.

The Wizard line is still alive today as a series of incredibly inexpensive pocket organizers that may be good substitutes for Pocket PCs for some users.

Wikipedia Wizard Page

Oddball Micros: Commodore KIM-1

The KIM-1 was the first computer made by MOS Technologies (Commodore). It came as a fully assembled bare board, with a six-digit LED display and a hexadecimal keypad (with 1152 bytes of RAM and 2K of ROM). They were produced until 1981, enjoying considerable success as low-cost hobbyist and educational machines. The incredibly successful Commodore PET-2001 was based on the KIM-1 architecture but included niceties such as a case, power supply, monitor, keyboard, and cassette drive.

I first encountered a KIM-1 in Heaven, a dusty computer graveyard that occupied storage space on the top floor of a University building while I was a teaching assistant. Heaven was filled with stacks of old KIM-1 boards that must have been removed from a computing lab, along with old Northstars, Decwriters, VT-100 terminals, and all manner of unidentifiable minicomputer hardware. Part of me likes to think that all that history is still there, waiting to be rediscovered, although it was probably scrapped years ago.

Commodore KIM-1 (Ruud's Commodore Site)

PhoneMate Model 500 - Voicemail In The Early 1970s

I have an incredibly complicated voice mail system on my office line. It knows my schedule better than me, and is even clever enough to forward calls when I'm out and about. It wasn't always this way, of course. In the beginning, telephone answering machines were crude tape-based systems that were almost exclusively the domain of businesses.

The PhoneMate 400 was introduced in 1971, capable of storing ten minutes of messages on reel-to-reel tape. There were no fancy features like time and date stamping, voice menus, or remote message retrieval. AT&T was concerned about the potential for an army of automated message takers, and attempted to ban them from the telephone system. Thank goodness they lost, or we'd be forced to talk to real people every time we made a call.

The History of Answering Machines

Emil's Vintage Technology Site

I bookmarked Emil's Vintage Technology Site a few months ago, but haven't had a good chance to really explore it yet. The site takes a look at some classic technology from the 1950s through 1970s. It includes a fantastic 1970s calculator section, including an interesting overview of the various display technologies used in these little electronic counting slaves. This is by far the easiest way to get inside these things without having to take a screwdriver to a dozen irreplaceable antiques. Check out the "Domestic Ads" section as well - it presents a fantastic snapshot of technology advertising, circa 1951.

Emil's Vintage Technology Site

Oddball Micros: Sinclair QL

Let's step back in time twenty-two years. Sinclair decided to reach beyond the home computer market with the introduction of a sophisticated Motorola 68008 based machine with dual 100K microtape drives, networking, multitasking, and a formidable 128K memory. The £400 Sinclair QL (Quantum Leap) was introduced with much fanfare in 1984.

It was beset with problems from the very beginning -- there were hardware issues and the machine's ROM wasn't finished in time for inclusion inside the case. It was attached using a Rube Goldberg-inspired external dongle. To make things worse, the computing market in general was going through an incredible slump. Too many incompatible machines with short lifespans had been tossed into the marketplace in the early 1980s. Business users were beginning to turn to the reliable and tank-like IBM PC or various MS-DOS clones.  They were unwilling to squander a few hundred pounds on an unreliable gadget with unusual styling and strange tape drives.

Sinclair sold a mere 100,000 or so units -- far less than the millions of ZX81s and Sinclair Spectrums that had dominated the market years earlier. It marked the end -- Sinclair Research's computer division was sold off to Amstrad a couple of years later, and Sinclair himself moved on to design the clever little Cambridge Z88 notepad.

Sinclair QL computer info

Milton Bradley's Simon - Simple And Addictive Electronic Gaming

The year was 1978. Disco was in full force, and Milton Bradley released a spaceship shaped electronic game with four lighted color buttons. The game was Simon, and this little UFO was one of the hottest toys of the late 1970s. Simon has been through numerous iterations over the years, appearing in rectangular, pocket, and cheap-asian-ripoff versions. It's even available as a Mac OS X freeware app.

Handheld Museum reports: "Simon has been an ongoing product for MB/Hasbro since it's debut in 1978, and can still be purchased at Toys R Us and other toy stores (though the version they sell now is clear). They've also made several versions of the Simon game over the years including the 2-player Super Simon, handheld Simon and even a   keychain Simon. The newest incarnation is Simon2 that you can actually flip over for a 2-player head-to-head style game."

See The Handheld Museum's Simon page for more...

Porsche Design 909 Tobacco Pipe

Ah, for the finer things in life. I'm a huge fan of Porsche Design. They have a way of decomposing even the most familiar items into the essence of modern style. To that end, they offer a series of $350 tobacco pipes which simultanously remind me of fast cars and exclusive wood-paneled clubs. My absolute favorite is their classically curved Model 909, crafted from 'the finest quality briar' with an acrylic mouthpiece. A matching aluminum pipe tool is available for $99. [Thanks, Dominic!]

Porsche Design 909 Tobacco Pipe

Leica R8 - Beautifully Modern 35mm From The Originators Of The Format

The Ernst Leitz company began experimenting with still cameras that used 35mm film in 1913, and they introduced the first of their famous Leica lineup in 1925. The photography industry has seen innumerable twists and turns since then, but 35mm film is still with us.

The Leitz company is also still around as Leica Camera AG, and their Leica R8 is a beautiful example of modern SLR 35mm technology. It's not the fanciest in their lineup, but it's features are definitely a cut above. It offers top-notch solid metal construction, an exceptionally bright high-eyepoint viewfinder, and a choice of manual or automatic film advance. The shutter is adjustable between 32 seconds and 1/8000 second, and it accepts standard Leica R-bayonet lenses.

Leica R8 review by Hans Petter Strifeldt (photo.net)
Leica Camera AG main site (US English version)

Oddball Micros: Timex/Sinclair 1500

Sinclair's low cost computer designs must have caused more than a few sleepless nights around the computer industry in the early 1980s, but the truth was that their early ZX81 (known as the Timex Sinclair 1000 in the USA) had serious shortcomings that prevented it from becoming more than a novelty.

Timex was Sinclair's North American manufacturing and sales partner, and in mid 1983 they introduced the Timex Sinclair 1500 in an attempt to fix a couple of the ZX81's most glaring warts: the ZX81's infamous membrane touchpanel was replaced by a "real" chicklet-based design (taken from the new color Sinclair Spectrum), and the memory was expanded to a respectable 16K (up from the Timex 1000's measley 1024 bytes). The display was still B&W, and the standard machine was incapable of making sound unless thrown.

The TS 1500 was priced at an astounding $79.95. It didn't sell well because the industry's dirty little secret was that most low-cost machines spent their lives as fancy videogame consoles -- and the TS1500 couldn't compete with the rainbow of color and sound (can one have a rainbow of sound?) produced by the competiton.

Timex Sinclair 1500 (more at old-computers.com)

Getting Your Vinyl Fix Online

I know the story - you finally got your hands on a spiffy new/reborn turntable, and you're on the lookout for vinyl. Vintage music shops can be hit and miss -- you never know what you're going to find. Here are a few online shops that should be able to satisfy your craving:

Anything 80s: Low cost LPs, 45s, and 12-inch singles from the Decade of XS.
Records By Mail: Established 1974 in Portland, OR. Over 2 million music frizbees in stock.
Vintage Vinyl: Yeah, the store from High Fidelity.

Or you could try your luck with the King Kong of the industry -- GEMM, an international marketplace with "26 million CDs, LPs, 45s and more from thousands of sellers around the world!"

Good luck on your search, and feel free to share your fave online vinyl shops in the comments.

Zweydingers - Retro-Style Handmade Skis

It seems that boutique ski manufacturers are set to tackle the retro market with a vengeance. Joe Zander from Zweydingers in Hemmingen, Germany gave me a shout recently about their line of beautiful handmade skis. They offer five retro-styled designs, each priced at 749 euros with bindings, 599 without. They ship worldwide.

For that price you get 162 cm of sleek handcrafted beauty with a visible wooden core crafted from solid ash, reinforced with fiberglass and titanal inlays on the upper and lower surface. The bindings are versatile Italian-made VIST 311s, with Speedlock Pro racing plates (derived from the new WorldCupAir design).

These are certainly attractive skis and I'd love to strap on a pair to carve up my local hills. They would definitely get attention at the chalet -- at a quick glance they look just like the classic wooden skis in the vintage photos at my favorite ski hideout in Banff, but their shape gives them away as brand new designs. Zweydingers started shipping in November 2005, so reviews should start trickling in any time now.

Zweydingers classic sport design skis 

The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years

OK, OK. One last post before Christmas.

"Here's PC World's official (and entirely idiosyncratic) list of the top tech gadgets of the last half century." There's some great stuff from earlier decades, but things get a bit iffy once we hit the 2000s (Roomba vacuum cleaner and Motorola Razr V3 phone??).

The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years (pcworld.com)