Engadget unceremoniously posted a version of its witty, sardonic take on all things gadgety (including some home theater content) circa 1985, as if Engadget started out as a BBS (Bulletin Board System - a pre-pre-pre-cursor to web sites). Was today April 1, and I missed the memo? This is brilliant, brilliant stuff. 
Of course, there wasn't much of a home theater industry back in 1985 - which in and of itself is interesting, showing just how fast this market has grown. The best you could do then was HiFi VHS and a 35" TV -- RPTVs were just too dim to work well for most, and front projection was even more unusual. (No flames, please - yes, I know Runco and several others were around, but this was still before the dawn of Dolby Pro-Logic surround sound). The big home theater news was getting the new VHS VCR to stop flashing "12:00," now that VHS vs. Beta was effectively over, and the quick rise - and even faster consolidation - of the mom and pop video rental business.
Without any real home theater industry to catch my interest, my focus was on the hot technology of the day - the PC industry. These were the days of the Coleco Adam (with daisy wheel printing and proprietary tape drives), the Macintosh launch with MacWrite and MacPaint in shades of gray, and Compuserve. When Bill Gates really was as young as he looked. The incredible move from 12" floppies to 8" floppies to 5.25" floppies to 3.5" floppies. Making your fingers forget WordStar keyboard shortcuts to learn WordPerfect keyboard shortcuts. Borland. TRS-80. Atari vs. Intellivision vs. Colecovision.
The comments section on Engadget's 1985 entry shows a clear generational divide: those who remember the era fondly, and those born too late, who are puzzled by the quaint specs and outrageous prices of the day. In its own way -- new companies, rapid obsolescence, completely new technologies -- the PC industry in the 80's was just as exciting and fluid as home theater or even the mobile phone/music/imaging/game/GPS/PDA market is today. The key difference is that those of us who remember the tech of that era were, well, geeks. You had to actively seek out information about the latest chipset or software company, mostly in industry-specific press or at trade shows (tough, but not impossible, to do when you were in high school).
The biggest difference today is not the technology, but the culture, which often takes longer to change. Today, there are Personal Technology columns in every mainstream newspaper. My mother has an LCD TV, Wal~Mart sells several Home Theater In a Box systems, my wife has a cameraphone, and I can't go to the synagogue without getting pestered with questions about which smartphone to buy or where to position surround sound speakers. Displays and mobile devices are evolving faster than most folks can keep up with them - the product lifecycle of a cell phone is brutal. But if you're in the market today for a 42" plasma TV or a converged phone/iPod/camera, you aren't necessarily a geek - just a regular consumer.
-avi
Comments