Tell me the newest piece of technology that your parents bought when you were a kid?

Question

My Dad was a computer engineer, so we were the only ones in the neighborhood that had a computer. It was a TRS80. Go ahead! Take that trip down memory lane!

Answer 1

We may have a generation gap, but the prized possession in our household was a hand wound, spring operated Grafanola. I grew up on farms without electricity. The 1924 Grafanola was such a drawing card that other families came to our house every Saturday night to hear the records. I am now 82 years old and can download those same old songs from internet sources.

Answer 2

My father was a tech junkie as well...

I remember him spending $1000 on a TRS-80 with a 10" monochrome monitor and a keyboard. The hard drive was a tape player and it only had 16Kb of memory. BASIC was the operating system and there were not very many graphics you could make on it.

But the newest technology I remember even before that was a video game that we had called the Magnovox Odyssey. I think we purchased it sometime in the summer of 1972. It was kind of like a pong game that had different circuit card and TV over displays that would allow you to play the game in a better way. One game that I remember was the haunted house. You had to find a ghost and shoot it with the gun...I think...but that was a long time ago.

Also, I remember the first microwave oven. It was very expensive and could only cook at one temp and for no more that 20 minutes. I think it could not even hold a regular size dinner plate.

Answer 3

We got a projection TV back in the early 80s (83?) that had the 3 colored lights which reflected into a mirror you had to fold out, which then projected the image on a big screen. None of my friends understood it (even years later) and thought the mirror section that folded out was a seat in front of the screen! That baby lasted almost 20 years, too. We also got a commodore 64 (85, 86?) and for a while were the only people I knew of with a computer at their house. My grandma was one of the first people I knew who bought a CD player...she had one of those carousel ones...

Answer 4

My Dad bought me for Christmas (my Junior Year of High School),
a Realistic brand 8-Track stereo with optional SOLID WOOD speakers!!! I played the heck out of the music score to the movie,
"Patton" and "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly!" which I bought
a few years later........... I also got a new, "state of the art" LED watch from T.I. (you know, with the black/red face and the button
you had to push to get the digits to go on for 3 seconds). Gotta go
find my Liver spot cream now. lol!

Answer 5

Hahahaha, I remember the TRS80...nothing like that "Turtle program..." Oh-kay, I will totally be letting my age out of the bag, but I remember our first Microwave (early 80's, maybe 82-83?) and our first VCR...(hmm..early to mid eighties.) We also only listened to vinyl until about 87, but I do remember getting Michael Jackson's Thriller on casette, lol!

Answer 6

Well my dad didn't buy it but he won it in a competition...an Atari 7800...top of the line, model up from the 2600, could run rings around the old commodore 64...sigh...those were the days...

Answer 7

As far as what they bought, it was a color television. But, my brother worked at Sears at the time, and was allowed to bring home this new gadget called a microwave to test it out in our home for a week. All my friends thought it was cool. I can honestly say I had one in my home six months before they came out on the market.

Answer 8

Ok, I've got you all beat. I remember when my Dad bought the first TV in our town. The whole sixth grade class came to my house to watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth.

Answer 9

A mini lcd calculator. It was one of those Sharp ones that was super thin like a credit card and came in a little blue velvet case. I don't know if you remember or not but tech stuff back then was like solid gold. My dad treated that calculator like it was a national security asset.

Answer 10

A Commodore64