How the world’s first game console appeared and 9 more gadgets that we use every day in 2023

Household appliances and portable electronics have entered our everyday life so tightly that we could hardly imagine it without our favorite and practical devices – a laptop, headphones, a vacuum cleaner, and so on. Some devices make our life easier, others make it brighter.

Did you know that most of the gadgets we are familiar with did not originate at all in the 2010s? There was a time when the great ideas of brilliant people hit a glass ceiling with an underdeveloped industry or the authors’ own fantasies.

Let’s take a look at the convulsions of engineers that are associated with their breakthrough Thoughts in bulky, sometimes awkward, but still functioning devices.

1. Computer mouse (1964)

You are not mistaken – it is wooden. In 1964, the easiest way to carve a prototype was out of wood, since the 3D printer did not appear until several decades later. Douglas Engelbart built this manipulator as a demo: he had the user control the computer using an interface created by Douglas’ team.

In 1970, the genius received a patent for the historical “XY position indicator for display system» with two metal wheels. Other people called him “Mouse” – for the characteristic shape and wire, respectively, the tail. By the way, in 2023, one of the surviving wooden mice was sold at auction for $178,936.

2. Osborne 1 laptop (1981)

Technically, it was not the first laptop in history, but Osborne 1 distinguished itself by its commercial success: that is, users liked the device so much that they were ready to pay $ 1,795 for it from the nose.

The laptop was equipped with a carrying handle – otherwise such an 11-kilogram “coffin” would be difficult to transport. The display-to-body ratio was ridiculously small: a five-inch CRT screen was located in the center of one of the halves of the monstrous body. Out of the box, he skillfully works with text, tables, as well as MBASIC and CBASIC languages.

The device turned out to be so popular that the seller had to tease two new models even before they were born. This mistake led the company to bankruptcy.

3. Electric washing machine (1910)

Women at all times have been so eager to ask themselves about the process of washing that the first washing machines appeared at least in the 16th century – then still manual. James King’s first spinning drum was ingenious, but not widely used. The electric “washer” was invented even later, in the 1900s, its creator is still unknown.

In the picture from 1910 you see the first electric washing machine. The housewife deliberately relaxes next to the revolutionary device (on his side – the waterline, funny). But in fact, such terms “squeeze” machines were quite dangerous to health, and it was common to read a book next to them.

In the 1930-40s, the device was used in a single cabinet. Only for greater safety, a laundry wringer was installed, specific to specific household appliances.

4 Headphones (1890)

A minute of trash in the 1890s. It was then that women working as telephone operators first began to wear objects on their heads, only in fear, not paying attention to our headphones.

At first it was, most likely, a headset, that is, just one pair of headphones and a microphone with a microphone on the shoulder in a bunch – in the picture you can see this monster that looks like a prosthesis and a torture device at once. Completely “gigachad» A device that requires the most developed cervical muscle.

5. Hair dryer (1888)

Actually not a hair dryer, but hair dryer, because this is a transliteration of the brand of a German manufacturer of hair dryers. The first hair dryer was patented in 1888, and it was a two-kilogram monster that breathed 90-degree air.

The invention connected to the chimney of a gas stove and included a steam vent valve to keep the woman’s head from “cooking” during the drying process. What a horror.

It’s also a hair dryer. It just works a little differently.

Special attention deserves such a contraption for drying hair of the late 19th century.

Boiling water is poured inside the ceramic bottle, after which you need to comb your hair – and it dries.

6. Mechanical calculator (1911)

The case when you calculate in your mind will be faster. In the photo you see a mechanical calculator from 1911, which later became electromechanical – both versions require a very special braininess from both the creators and users.

The operation of the device was based on pre-configured gear ratios: each digit rotated at its own set speed, the dial results were also movable. What a blessing that 40 years later these monsters have replaced cheaper and more understandable electronic calculators!

7. Wireless remote control (1955)

The first wireless remote control.

The stylish and stuffed Apple Remote also had a distant ugly ancestor in the family. In the 1950s, Zenith invented the “magic egg”: a device that changed TV programs with a wheel handle, and also allowed the TV to be turned on and off with buttons.

The remote was wired, and users complained about the unsightly and uncomfortable cable.

Then the Zenith engineer came up with the first wireless remote-flash-Matic, the one in the photo. Introduced in 1955, the device looked more like a hand-held flashlight than it, in fact, and in fact – only there was a photocell instead of a light bulb.

A TV with its own zones in the corners, the signal from which was transformed with the help of Flash-Matic into four functions: on / off the image and sound, as well as switching emitters in both directions.

8. Vacuum cleaner (1901)

For the first time, a patent for a certain vacuum cleaner The device was issued in 1901 to Hubert Cecil Booth, an English engineer. The first vacuum cleaner looked healthy, like a red wagon, and it was impossible to move it in the house: the device was brought to the house on horseback, after which the cleaning pipe was inserted through the window.

Bana was very noisy at the “joy” of the neighbors, who in good faith wrote complaints against Buta in British fashion – and once he was even fined. The horses were also not happy, which is why the police generally forbade the production of a roaring monster without supervision.

The basic principle of operation of Booth’s vacuum cleaner and modern “cleaners” is identical: dust is sucked in together with air and filtered. So the current vacuum cleaners can be considered the heirs of the “same” two-horsepower device.

9. Game console (1966-1972)

Wooden prototype game console, created in 1966.

The world’s first video game console called the Odyssey was invented in 1966 and released by Magnavox in 1972. Interestingly, since 1974, Magnavox has become the owner of Philips.

An early prototype was made of wood, but this is what the production copy looked like:

A commercial version of the Odyssey video game console released in 1972.

Odyssey offered a fascinating feast experience – managing situations with dots on the screen, the behavior of which changed depending on a particular title. To make it even more fun, gamers were offered to put colored plastic overlays on the TV screen.

You can see a joystick next to the console – the player was allowed to connect two of them at once. Over the three years of its existence, the console has been sold 350 thousand times, deeply planting dreams of a distant gaming future in the minds and fantasies of people.

10. Roller skates (1913)

More precisely, rollers of symbiosis with a bicycle of the 1913 model. Yes, you really see pedal skates: in the photo this video looks like any careless movement will cost the guy an extra foot.

It was necessary to move on rollers with the help of step-by-step movements right on the pedals. Those, in turn, turned the wheels, and the rider proudly teleported three steps forward, taking only one. And if you also pick up speed … But it’s better not to. Judging by the scarce data on the network, braking systems are not provided for in this design.

By the way, the idea is not without meaning: on such skates you can burn calories great and accelerate well. But the device did not take off: in fact, it turned out that muscle efforts are not multiplied, but simply redistributed. And I had to learn how to ride it.

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As you can see, if a person really wants to achieve something, then one day he will reach the goal. And this idea is deeper than it might seem at first glance. Thanks to the inventors of the past, today we are surrounded by comfortable, beautiful and headphones.

And even this is not the limit of human genius.