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#gizmodo79

Bill Gates: My 1979 Memories

Our Gizmodo '79 celebration may have ended last week, but there's room for a final post, written by famed retiree and mosquito wrangler Bill Gates. It's no joke: Gates read the series then sent this in: More »

07/23/09

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By Bill Gates

#lego

1979: The Golden Age of Lego

1979 was the beginning of Lego as we know it today, the year when they took over the world, the year of the Galaxy Explorer. I photographed all the classic sets in my Lego trip. Here's the never-released gallery: More »

07/19/09

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By Jesus Diaz

#gizmodo79

Yes, Good Old Retro 1979 Seemed Fun (But It Really Sucked!)

Writing about technology as it was thirty years ago, I realized that 1979 was perhaps the last year before a digital tsunami hit, sweeping clean the analog era that had persisted for decades. More »

07/19/09

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By Steven Levy

#giz79

1979 Rumor: Leaked Docs of "Compact Disc" Audio Format Using LASERS

From 1979: A source "close to the matter" claims this document outlines a future Audio format that would utilize a tapeless design, and *snort* use lasers as some sort of record needle. Sounds like Bullshit to me. More »

07/19/09

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By Brian Lam

#microsoft

Then and Now: Microsoft

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born. More »

07/19/09

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By John Herrman

#computers

Cray-1: The Super Computer

Seymour Cray's big super computer was crazy. It's signals between components had to be timed by trimming long cables up to 1/16th of an inch at a time by hand and was basically interwoven with a giant refrigeration system. More »

07/19/09

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By john alderman

#network

The Network Before the Internet

The network started to breathe in the 70's. Above, the first ethernet cable, found in PARC's labs by Boing Boing Gadgets. Dag Spicer, numero uno Curator at the Computer History Museum, tells us more: More »

07/18/09

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By Brian Lam

#airplanes

The Supersonic Concorde Jet: Can We Go Back to 1979, Please?

Many of our Gizmodo '79 posts have illustrated just how far we've come in the past three decades, but in one important tech example, 1979 kicks 2009's ass: The Concorde Jet. More »

07/18/09

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By Dan Nosowitz

#computers

Tandy TRS-80: The Budget Computer

Even back then, there were computers for people who couldn't afford the more expensive stuff. Take this Tandy, which costs little more than a upgraded Netbook today. From Core Memory, photographed by Mark Richards and written by John Alderman. More »

07/18/09

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By Mark Richards and John Alderman

#apple

Then and Now: Apple Computers

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born. More »

07/18/09

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By John Herrman

#gizmodo79

Digital Cams Still Haven't Caught Up to Film's Resolution: Does it Matter?

Lenses being equal, a large format 8x10 piece of film can capture the equivalent of 800 Megapixels. Just saying. But does it matter? Discuss! More »

07/18/09

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By Brian Lam

#pcs

What Is This?

Q: What classic computer and Apple II competitor opened its steel case up like a car hood? And was named after a domestic rock toy popular at the time? More »

07/18/09

0

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By Brian Lam

#pc

Intel 8088: The Chip That Gave Birth to the Borg

This is the Intel 8088. A beast with 29,000 transistors that could be clocked up 8MHz in its 1979 heyday, it was the second chip to use the x86 architecture, and the brains inside the original IBM PC. More »

07/17/09

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By matt buchanan

#startrek

The 1979 Klingon Happy Meal

You may think the weird Happy Meal bundling came during the '80s, but McDonalds was already busy making sure kids got their fix of movie-promotion McNuggets by 1979. Today is a good day to supersize. More »

07/17/09

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By Jason Chen

#sony

Then and Now: Sony's A/V Range

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born. More »

07/17/09

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By John Herrman

#tgif

Add To Our List Of 8 Comically Enormous Retro Gadgets

We pointed out why gadgets were more expensive 30 years ago, but it is also important to note that many of these gadgets were hilariously huge. I've collected eight examples, I'll leave it up to you to add the rest. More »

07/17/09

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By Sean Fallon

#design

Frog Design's Hartmut Esslinger On Design in 1979

Hartmut Esslinger's Frog Design made WEGA/Sony's electronics fetish items, and then designed the "Snow White" language the Mac used. He's a design legend and an author. Here he tells us about the challenges of designing, then and now. More »

07/17/09

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By Wilson Rothman

#formatwar

The Dirty Backstabbing Mess Called Betamax vs VHS

You think you enjoyed Blu-ray vs HD DVD? Memory Stick vs SD? Pshaw! You haven't seen a format war until you've witnessed the betrayal and bloodbath that was Betamax vs VHS. More »

07/17/09

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By Wilson Rothman

#tvs

The Sinclair MTV-1 Micro TV

Sinclair's little ultra-sharp black and white TV was meant to be a pocket set. But with a 4x6-inch footprint, it was impossible to stash in most disco-tight pockets at the time, even if it was under 2 inches thick. More »

07/17/09

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By Brian Lam

#toys

Speak and Spell: 1979's Best Robotic Teacher

The Speak and Spell, which was first shown at CES in 1978 and sold in 1979, was one of the first gadgets with a visual display to use interchangeable game cartridges, and it taught a whole generation how to spell. More »

07/17/09

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By Adam Frucci

#gizmodo79

Then and Now: The Hewlett-Packard Family

Gizmodo '79 is a week-long celebration of gadgets and geekdom 30 years ago, as the analog age gave way to the digital, and most of our favorite toys were just being born. More »

07/17/09

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By John Herrman

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