What's New for '82
09/23/07 08:07 PM Filed in: Retro
What the hey, I dug out another old magazine for a
little bit of fun-filled retro magazine-ing.
This time around it's a Popular Science from 1982. This one was procured by my parents for reasons that you will see below.
1982. That doesn't seem like that long ago, I mean I was 8 years old so how long ago could it have been? Well, it was 2 years before the concept of the "personal computer" became a widely thought-of idea. Prior to that year AT&T was known as THE PHONE COMPANY, because there wasn't such a thing as competition. But thanks to some regulations being put on the telecom industry AT&T became 22 separate companies, many of which were purchased back by AT&T, most recently Cingular. The U.S. had trouble with the Libyans, which is quaint by today's standards and there was that war in the Falklands, but that was the U.K. and Argentina so nobody in the U.S. really seemed to care. Braniff Airlines went broke, Rubiks Cubes were new, Knight Rider first hit the air, fax machines seemed futuristic and with the exception of Hall & Oates and the B-52's, most popular music was shitty, at least until Thriller was released in December.
But Popular Science wasn't a magazine that concerned itself with the present. It was too busy thinking about.. THE FUTURE!
The future of SCIENCE!
As you are about to find out, the future according to 1982 is pretty damned ugly.
Let's dig in, shall we?
My good golly. And you thought the $100 computer project, or the OLPC project as it has come to be known, was a new idea. Piffle! People, and by people I mean the nerds who read Popular Science, were already thinking about a $100 computer. Although, it really wasn't technically $100. And it was only a computer in the loosest sense. The Timex Sinclair 1000 was a glorified calculator that, if you can tell by the scale on this cover, was tiny tiny tiny. You could get a gross thermal printer and use any TV as your screen. Fantastic.
Amazingly the Sinclair 1000 has a fanpage. But what doesn't these days?
Sinclair, sans the help of Timex, also offered the ZX81. A personal computer you build yourself for a mere $80! Doesn't that sound like a blast? A jillion tiny screws and sensitive little chips with easily bendable pins offering up to 16K of RAM, but more likely the much more affordable 2K. Wow! Watch out, Cray, there's a new game in town. But seriously, go ahead and install Windows Vista on there, but keep in mind that the Aero Glass visualization probably won't work.
The reason you don't see too many of these VW Pickups on the road anymore is because most of them disintegrated. Sure, they suffered from VW's anemic engine issues. They had that unique blend of low horsepower and very little torque that made these laughable for hauling anything substantial. But for the most part they just rusted to dust, and that's even in dry and salt-less climates like the dessert. Here in the midwest they just turned into a pile of orange detritus in the driveway after the first winter-weather road salting. The owner's only solace being that they were so horribly ugly that no amount of rust made them look any worse.
And speaking of cars...
Chris looked at this page and appropriately responded "everything old is new again." Yeah, you thought the 30+MPG car was some recent concern? Oh no. As you will see later on, '82 was a big year for energy concerns. So Popular Science decided to do a side-by-side on three of the dumpiest looking small 4-door sedans in production at the time. I say three, because the Volvo actually looked a little badass at the time. But in this rogues gallery, being the least ugly car is hardly a heated competition.
Let's look at the contenders:
Volvo GL - It reminds me of a line from that horrible Dudley Moore movie where he has all the people in the asylum become ad agency creative personnel. "They're boxy, but they're good." As true then as it is now, although they finally got a little less boxy. Easily the most handsome of this lot.
Peugot 505 S - People in Nebraska didn't buy these, so I have no frame of reference. I'd like to think it was because we didn't have a Peugot dealer, but it's more likely because it sounded "too French" and in '82 you bought 'merican, by God.
Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera - One thing you must hand to Oldsmobile, they were consistent with fugly cars that offered "detached from the experience" handling. Yes, they maintained that consistency right up until the brand was phased out in 2004. A pretty depressing ending for a 107 year old company, no? This is notable for being the first production year of the Cutlass Ciera, which was an attempt to move from gas-guzzling to gas-sipping.
Pontiac Bonneville - Unlike with most things GM, this wasn't just badge-engineering. Amazingly the Bonneville did not share platforms with the Cutlass. This Pontiacwas downgraded for the '82 model from a full-size to this mid-size. And instead of sharing the platform with the Cutlass Ciera, as you would imagine, the Bonneville was more or less a stand-alone with the Cutlass sharing its platform with the Pontiac 6000.
This is probably more than you would ever begin to think about caring about these butt-ugly cars. But now you know.
And on the topic of vehicles...
It would be pretty generous to just call this bike horribly ugly. It looks like something a very fay Bond-villain henchman might ride. You fully expect the driver to be a lisping Max Zorin-helper that's going to pick up a parachuting Grace Jones while riding up a mountainside. Take everything that's cool about the motorcycle from Akira and everything that's cool about the lightcycles from TRON and remove all the coolness and this is what you're left with. A faceted gay luge-bench where evidently backseat riders must rest their feet on the engine. Nice engineering.
I don't care if you're the fuckin' Fonz, it is IMPOSSIBLE to look cool on this thing.
A Mini-Van?!?! What kind of crazy idea is that? Keep in mind that this is a full 2-years before Chrysler "invented" the minivan with the aid of Chairman/Lovable Old Coot Lee Iacocca. Apparently the European division of Ford was already on the concept, but had yet to perfect the insertion of 12 or more cup holders, giving Chrysler the design edge that it holds to this very day.
A good word for this photo is unfortunate, however a better word is hilarious. Dude, I know you've been working on the optical disc project for a while, but for your own sake could you at least try not to look like molester-villain archetype? It kind of like "What if Jim Henson had been myopic and mildly retarded" sort of look going on here. Not good.
And what's he holding? Oh yes, it's a CD!
Thanks to these bastards, the guy in the dorm room next to you was able to listen to Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" over and over again without it ever wearing out or breaking. How great is that?
In a way I wish the discs had stayed that big. It would've forced some pretty radical re-designing of automobile dashboards, which I think would have been good, or at least hilarious for the industry.
Look at the size of that thing!
A side note, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Inc., who made the above CD/VCR thingy, also made the VW 6-disc changer that I'm selling on Craigslist. They currently own Panasonic, Quasar, Technics, Lumix digital cameras and some no doubt crazy-ass thing called the Yam Pounder model SD-2100Y. Does it pound yams? If so, why? We may never know.
I love the tiny tub. "Only room for a small tub?" Then knock down a wall or something, because unless you're amidget little person, this will look
absurd in your bathroom.
This is why I had this mag in the first place. It goes along with all the other 1982 Worlds Fair stuff that now sits in the garage. You see, the 1982 Worlds Fair was notable because A) I went to it, and B) it was held in my mother's hometown of Knoxville, TN. And long before Al Gore made a feature film out of his powerpoint presentation, the concept of alternative energies captured the imaginations of at least a few of the people who came to witness this event. People knew in 1982 that we were running low on gas as a planet. Did people just somehow forget for 20 years?
When people think of the '82 Fair they think of one thing:
The iconic, and shockingly still-standing Sunsphere. There was a petition passed around that successfully got the city to open the Sunsphere back up to the public for a little while. I missed the window, but so far as I know they have no intention of getting rid of it. I drove right past the base of it when I made my surprise trip to TN for my dad's operation (see previous post).It still represents now what it represented then, a big gold ball in the middle of a bunch of buildings. Truly moving, or inspiring... or something.
There's some other crap, but why spoil it? That's the highlights of this issue.
I'm sure there will be more retro fun to come, but I need to dig through some old mags for some content. I'd love some suggestions, either via the Contact Me page or in comments below, so feel free.
In the meantime, kiddies, take 'er easy.
Huzzah.
This time around it's a Popular Science from 1982. This one was procured by my parents for reasons that you will see below.
1982. That doesn't seem like that long ago, I mean I was 8 years old so how long ago could it have been? Well, it was 2 years before the concept of the "personal computer" became a widely thought-of idea. Prior to that year AT&T was known as THE PHONE COMPANY, because there wasn't such a thing as competition. But thanks to some regulations being put on the telecom industry AT&T became 22 separate companies, many of which were purchased back by AT&T, most recently Cingular. The U.S. had trouble with the Libyans, which is quaint by today's standards and there was that war in the Falklands, but that was the U.K. and Argentina so nobody in the U.S. really seemed to care. Braniff Airlines went broke, Rubiks Cubes were new, Knight Rider first hit the air, fax machines seemed futuristic and with the exception of Hall & Oates and the B-52's, most popular music was shitty, at least until Thriller was released in December.
But Popular Science wasn't a magazine that concerned itself with the present. It was too busy thinking about.. THE FUTURE!
The future of SCIENCE!
As you are about to find out, the future according to 1982 is pretty damned ugly.
Let's dig in, shall we?
My good golly. And you thought the $100 computer project, or the OLPC project as it has come to be known, was a new idea. Piffle! People, and by people I mean the nerds who read Popular Science, were already thinking about a $100 computer. Although, it really wasn't technically $100. And it was only a computer in the loosest sense. The Timex Sinclair 1000 was a glorified calculator that, if you can tell by the scale on this cover, was tiny tiny tiny. You could get a gross thermal printer and use any TV as your screen. Fantastic.
Amazingly the Sinclair 1000 has a fanpage. But what doesn't these days?
Sinclair, sans the help of Timex, also offered the ZX81. A personal computer you build yourself for a mere $80! Doesn't that sound like a blast? A jillion tiny screws and sensitive little chips with easily bendable pins offering up to 16K of RAM, but more likely the much more affordable 2K. Wow! Watch out, Cray, there's a new game in town. But seriously, go ahead and install Windows Vista on there, but keep in mind that the Aero Glass visualization probably won't work.
The reason you don't see too many of these VW Pickups on the road anymore is because most of them disintegrated. Sure, they suffered from VW's anemic engine issues. They had that unique blend of low horsepower and very little torque that made these laughable for hauling anything substantial. But for the most part they just rusted to dust, and that's even in dry and salt-less climates like the dessert. Here in the midwest they just turned into a pile of orange detritus in the driveway after the first winter-weather road salting. The owner's only solace being that they were so horribly ugly that no amount of rust made them look any worse.
And speaking of cars...
Chris looked at this page and appropriately responded "everything old is new again." Yeah, you thought the 30+MPG car was some recent concern? Oh no. As you will see later on, '82 was a big year for energy concerns. So Popular Science decided to do a side-by-side on three of the dumpiest looking small 4-door sedans in production at the time. I say three, because the Volvo actually looked a little badass at the time. But in this rogues gallery, being the least ugly car is hardly a heated competition.
Let's look at the contenders:
Volvo GL - It reminds me of a line from that horrible Dudley Moore movie where he has all the people in the asylum become ad agency creative personnel. "They're boxy, but they're good." As true then as it is now, although they finally got a little less boxy. Easily the most handsome of this lot.
Peugot 505 S - People in Nebraska didn't buy these, so I have no frame of reference. I'd like to think it was because we didn't have a Peugot dealer, but it's more likely because it sounded "too French" and in '82 you bought 'merican, by God.
Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera - One thing you must hand to Oldsmobile, they were consistent with fugly cars that offered "detached from the experience" handling. Yes, they maintained that consistency right up until the brand was phased out in 2004. A pretty depressing ending for a 107 year old company, no? This is notable for being the first production year of the Cutlass Ciera, which was an attempt to move from gas-guzzling to gas-sipping.
Pontiac Bonneville - Unlike with most things GM, this wasn't just badge-engineering. Amazingly the Bonneville did not share platforms with the Cutlass. This Pontiacwas downgraded for the '82 model from a full-size to this mid-size. And instead of sharing the platform with the Cutlass Ciera, as you would imagine, the Bonneville was more or less a stand-alone with the Cutlass sharing its platform with the Pontiac 6000.
This is probably more than you would ever begin to think about caring about these butt-ugly cars. But now you know.
And on the topic of vehicles...
It would be pretty generous to just call this bike horribly ugly. It looks like something a very fay Bond-villain henchman might ride. You fully expect the driver to be a lisping Max Zorin-helper that's going to pick up a parachuting Grace Jones while riding up a mountainside. Take everything that's cool about the motorcycle from Akira and everything that's cool about the lightcycles from TRON and remove all the coolness and this is what you're left with. A faceted gay luge-bench where evidently backseat riders must rest their feet on the engine. Nice engineering.
I don't care if you're the fuckin' Fonz, it is IMPOSSIBLE to look cool on this thing.
A Mini-Van?!?! What kind of crazy idea is that? Keep in mind that this is a full 2-years before Chrysler "invented" the minivan with the aid of Chairman/Lovable Old Coot Lee Iacocca. Apparently the European division of Ford was already on the concept, but had yet to perfect the insertion of 12 or more cup holders, giving Chrysler the design edge that it holds to this very day.
A good word for this photo is unfortunate, however a better word is hilarious. Dude, I know you've been working on the optical disc project for a while, but for your own sake could you at least try not to look like molester-villain archetype? It kind of like "What if Jim Henson had been myopic and mildly retarded" sort of look going on here. Not good.
And what's he holding? Oh yes, it's a CD!
Thanks to these bastards, the guy in the dorm room next to you was able to listen to Limp Bizkit's "Nookie" over and over again without it ever wearing out or breaking. How great is that?
In a way I wish the discs had stayed that big. It would've forced some pretty radical re-designing of automobile dashboards, which I think would have been good, or at least hilarious for the industry.
Look at the size of that thing!
A side note, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Inc., who made the above CD/VCR thingy, also made the VW 6-disc changer that I'm selling on Craigslist. They currently own Panasonic, Quasar, Technics, Lumix digital cameras and some no doubt crazy-ass thing called the Yam Pounder model SD-2100Y. Does it pound yams? If so, why? We may never know.
I love the tiny tub. "Only room for a small tub?" Then knock down a wall or something, because unless you're a
This is why I had this mag in the first place. It goes along with all the other 1982 Worlds Fair stuff that now sits in the garage. You see, the 1982 Worlds Fair was notable because A) I went to it, and B) it was held in my mother's hometown of Knoxville, TN. And long before Al Gore made a feature film out of his powerpoint presentation, the concept of alternative energies captured the imaginations of at least a few of the people who came to witness this event. People knew in 1982 that we were running low on gas as a planet. Did people just somehow forget for 20 years?
When people think of the '82 Fair they think of one thing:
The iconic, and shockingly still-standing Sunsphere. There was a petition passed around that successfully got the city to open the Sunsphere back up to the public for a little while. I missed the window, but so far as I know they have no intention of getting rid of it. I drove right past the base of it when I made my surprise trip to TN for my dad's operation (see previous post).It still represents now what it represented then, a big gold ball in the middle of a bunch of buildings. Truly moving, or inspiring... or something.
There's some other crap, but why spoil it? That's the highlights of this issue.
I'm sure there will be more retro fun to come, but I need to dig through some old mags for some content. I'd love some suggestions, either via the Contact Me page or in comments below, so feel free.
In the meantime, kiddies, take 'er easy.
Huzzah.
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