Within 30 years, a lot of technology has come, gone and evolved. Here's a look at gadgets that changed our culture, improved our lives or were just plain fun.
Sinclair Pocket TV, 1979. Sinclair came out with this device a year earlier, but it was in 1979 that electronics retailer JS&A offered it for almost US$150 less than Sinclair was selling it.
Microvision 1979-1981. Ten years before Nintendo's GameBoy, there was Milton Bradley's Microvision. It was a portable system, but easily a foot long, with game 'cartridges' that were nearly the same length
Heathkit H89 'All-in-One' Computer, 1979. This system followed Heathkit's initial offering of two years earlier. It was available as both a kit to be assembled by the purchaser (model H89), or as an assembled and tested system (model WH89), at a US$700 premium.
IBM's 5150 Personal Computer, 1981. The 5150's CPU was from Intel, and the operating system was by Microsoft, which licensed it to IBM as PC-DOS. But a basic system ran the Microsoft BASIC programming language, which was built into every PC.
Atari 5200, 1982. Atari used the technology it employed in its 8-bit computers (available in 1979) to develop the 5200.
Intellivoice, 1982. Intellivision was a game console system designed by Mattel Electronics in 1979 to compete against Atari, Colecovision and Magnavox's Odyssey2. Three years later, the company unveiled Intellivoice, a module that attached to the cartridge port of the Intellivision.
The Sony CDP-101 CD Player, 1982. Sony introduced the CDP-101, the first Compact Disc audio CD player on the market at a retail price of roughly US$900.
DynaTAC 8000X Portable Cellular Phone, 1983
Apple Lisa, 1983. Apple's advanced (but unpopular at the time) Lisa, was the first computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI) and a mouse.
Sony Betamovie, 1983. Sony introduced the first camcorder, which combined a video camera and Betamax deck.
Casio Scientific Calculator Watch, CX-40, 1985
Nintendo GameBoy, 1989
Dycam Model 1, 1990. first completely digital consumer cameras sold in the US
Guidestar, 1995. Although the Magellan NAV 1000, introduced in 1988, was the first handheld GPS receiver available, General Motors' Oldsmobile division presented Guidestar, the first on-board navigation system to be offered on a production car.
DVD, 1995. Retailers started to sell movies on disk commonly by 1997, and by 2003, DVD rentals started to outpace those of VHS cassettes.
Palm Pilot, 1996
Simon Smartphone, 1997
HDTV Sets, 1999
Trek 2000 Thumb Drive, 2000
iPod, 2001
Nintendo Wii, 2006
iPhone, 2007
Sinclair Pocket TV, 1979. Sinclair came out with this device a year earlier, but it was in 1979 that electronics retailer JS&A offered it for almost US$150 less than Sinclair was selling it.