If it could stay just one year technologically forever...

[Adam]

All this talk about how nobody likes digital has got me thinking, If it could stay just one year technologically forever, what year/years would you choose? Or maybe the present day isn't all that bad? With all the old shows on dvd now you can watch Bewitched on a roundie whenever you want.

Myself, I would stay in and around the late 50s - early 60s: new enough to get a color set with a remote, but old enough that the set would be all tube, have a high quality cabinet and a round crt, and the radios still came in nice console cabinets and used tube amplifiers, but also came with a "modern" 33 rpm stereo record changer.

[andy]

I like 2008 because I can appreciate the technology of the past while enjoying modern things like the internet. If I was living in the 60's, all these vintage TVs I love would be no more interesting than a black plastic sony TV.

[MRX37]

I'm looking towards the future myself... When all this shit with Digital TV is ironed out enough for it to be acceptible. (better tuners capable of working with weaker signals, OLED displays becoming mainstream, faster channel surfing)

I know people will want those features, otherwise there are gonna be too many pissed off people.

[kx250rider]

With all due respect to Adam, I think I'd go with today. Why? Because when I was a kid, the roundies were all over the place... Everybody had one. And therefore, there wasn't anything special about tube sets. People get interested in old TVs, I beileve, for two main reasons: Either because they take you back to your innocent youth, or because you like to have something of historical value that nobody else among your friends has. There are other reasons of course, but those are the reasons I hear about. In my case, I like the 60s color sets because I played with them, worked on them, bought & sold them all through my teen years. Now they're gone with time passed, and we always want what can't be had.

Charles

[mr_fixer]

I'd pick 1997, the internet was new and not so populated with pop-ups, viruses, spam and spoof sites. My first internet computer worked for 7 years and never broke down. It used windows 95 and never had a problem with it. Back then used electronics still had some value, before we went to a totally disposable society. I needed some quick cash 6 months ago and tried to pawn my 2 year old Sanyo 27" TV set. They would not take it for any amount, not even 5 bucks. I remember in the 80's getting old color tv's and fixing then and people paying me real money for them.
and cars you could work on, my friend has a 2004 Chevy trailblazer that you unbolt the front clip to replace headlight bulbs. The dealer must do it and imagine a $200 bill to change you headlights. I miss the old days, Logan

[peverett]

I am like Andy, I like 2008. I do not hate digital, I just want it to work at least as well as the analog I now have(and to have the converters to be able to use my old TVs). I also like the internet, PCs, etc. As to tube TVs, I just enjoy working on them. I am very aware that a solid state television could be built(but is not) that would outlast any tube type television.

In fact, I make my living designing digital integrated circuits, so I definitely am in favor of digital in the proper applications.

Some have mentioned cars. To me modern cars are a mixed bag based on experience so far. Modern cars outdo the early ones with electronic fuel injection/engine control(much better than carbs) and safety(antilock brakes, air bags, crumple zones, handling, etc). Where they fall down is all of the plastic crap used on them such as plastic wheel covers, plastic/aluminum radiators, and plastic door handles. These are items that have failed(within 5 years no less) on the modern cars that I have owned. The metal equivalants on my 30+ year Mustang continue to work fine. Of course, it is true you can work on the older cars yourself(not true of the modern ones).

I did see an article indicating that in general, as people age, they tend to collect/like the things of their youth. Possibly this is part of the reason old TVs, radios, cars, etc. are collected. I see nothing wrong with this as it does help preserve historical items.

[Sandy G]

1955. Color TVs were here, passenger jets just over the horizon, American cars RULED-who the F*** wants something called a "Toyopet", anyhow ? The music was great, men were men & women were damn glad of it, Ike was in the White House, no cell phones, you could eat red meat & not feel guilty, if yr kid got out of line, you could cuff him in public & they didn't call the law on you....

[ChrisW6ATV]

If it stayed one year technologically forever, I would probably just want to go out and kill myself.

(I was going to elaborate on the above statement, but I found out there is no point to doing so. It sums up my opinion perfectly, nothing additional needed.)

[mr_fixer]

Dear Chris, Don't say that! because one day it will. It might be peak oil, total collapse of the artificial American economy or China's attempt to become the world's #1 superpower. I will bet sometime within the next 50 years we will go through another dark ages. look up a writer on the web called James Howard Kunstler.

[peverett]

1955? With all of the rampant condoned racisim in the country, especially the old south? Also if the McCarthyism was not still going on, it had not been too long. Not my choice for sure. I do like working on TVs from that period though(unless they have the yokes with the plastic that falls apart).

We could be like the Amish who have chosen to kind of remain at one technological year(1880 something, I think). I say kind of, as they have been seen wearing tennis shoes(not around in the 1880s) and will ride in automobiles(but will not own one).

[Aage]

I think any year from say 1918 to 1925. Hang out with Marconi, DuMont, Bell, everything is new, everything is possible, or almost.

Zero regulation, zero airwave pollution. Government is still Small.

An attitude that the New World would not repeat the mistakes of old, and that Technology would make us all safe, healthy, and wealthy.

The Old Country was only a memory, large families lived often with the extended family (grandma, grandad) in tiny houses, but didn't know that they were crowded. That's just how it was. And it was better than their parents had.

Almost all food was grown locally, sometimes by people you knew. It was sold to you by a person you definitely knew. Everyone knew what a car was, but many had not even ridden in one yet. Ditto for aiplanes, but most summers there were young men, WWI vets, that would come round flying in with barrel-rolls over the town, and land in a farmer's field on the outskirts of town to sell rides.

You lived in a house that didn't look exactly like every other one on the block. In fact, your street had one or two empty lots, and maybe a semi-derelict house.

One of your neighbours had a Radiogramme, and your dad was reading up on how they worked and was planning to make one himself.

A time to Dream Big...

[peverett]

1918-1925? No treatment for TB (My grandfather on my mothers side died from it at age 52 just before antibiotics in the 1930s)? Lynchings? No treatment for polio? Are you sure?

My grandfather and grandmother did live through these years, did not get to hang out with Marconi, had to work every day on their farm just to survive(including the backbreaking work of picking cotton manually). They had no running water, only a well and outhouse and had no electricity until 1950).

2008 sounds better to me all the time(but would like to be younger in age).

[Aage]

Originally Posted by peverett

1918-1925? No treatment for TB (My grandfather on my mothers side died from it at age 52 just before antibiotics in the 1930s)? Lynchings? No treatment for polio? Are you sure?

My grandfather and grandmother did live through these years, did not get to hang out with Marconi, had to work every day on their farm just to survive(including the backbreaking work of picking cotton manually). They had no running water, only a well and outhouse and had no electricity until 1950).

2008 sounds better to me all the time(but would like to be younger in age).

Well, all that is true, and my Danish grandad, a bricklayer who hardly spoke English at all, worked in the building boom in Chicago in the '20s didn't feel like Rockefeller, but he did feel wealthy relative to the folks back home. He sent his pay home to his mother in cash, by mail, by the way.

See, you can criticize all points in history, even today: where's our cure for cancer? Why isn't there universal rights for all men?

No, for me that time was flush with the excitement of the new inventions of Telegraph and Radio, plus the train, then the motorcar opened up the vast spaces of North America to all. Yet these were still far from being mature technologies, used by everyone.

You could smell the opportunity...

[andy]

One thing I've noticed while reading old magazines is that people had many of the same complaints back in the 50's and 60's as we do in 2008. Government was too big, taxes were too high, there was too much traffic, young people had lost their way, there was too much cost cutting,... For some reason we often only remember the good things from the past.

I try to appreciate and learn from the past while enjoying the present and looking forward to the future. If things stayed the same like would be pointless.

[2DualsNotEnough]

I remember just 15 years ago having to rely on quickly outdated reference books to find out anything about films,sports,the arts,etc.I wouldnt give up 2008 and the wonderful instant reference tools of the internet for anything.And remember how hard it was,pre internet to find or sell anything vintage audio related?
Jimmy