Scans from 1962 book that tries to predict life in 1975
Derrick Bostrom kindly scanned pages from a book called 1975: And the Changes To Come by Arnold B. Barach.
The book was published in 1962 and has photos and captions about the ways in which technology will change our lives in the coming decade. Here's some of the wonderful things we can expect when 1975 rolls around: Utrasonic dishwashers, combination electronic oven and food freezers, portable ovens (for tabletop cooking and broiling), toaster bacon, triple purpose TV unit ("for the housewife, enabling her to watch her children at play or identify visitors at the door or watch her favorite color television program"), wireless cardiac monitors, irradiated canned beans, and automatic language translation.
Caption for photo above:
Film Based Teaching Machine. Student pushes one of four buttons to give answers and his score appears on paper slip at upper right. Teaching machines, expected to boom in the next decade, usually operate on the principal of repetition until the pupil understands. They aim to speed up the learning process and relieve teacher of much paper work in the classroom.I can't wait for 1975 to get here. I am saving up for a Hi-Fi Sphere. Link
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to Hell with "jet packs". . . I want my TOASTER BACON!!
Those radioactive beans aren't just tasty -- they provide their own light source too!
Toaster bacon sounds like a great idea if you don't have a microwave. Or a toaster oven. Or a frying pan.
Yeah baby! TOASTER BACON!
ah, quaint:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bostworld/2152049328/in/photostream/
A device called a transducer produces the high frequency sound waves (about 20,000 cycles per minute), pitched so high they cannot be heard by the human ear.
a) transducer... you mean a SPEAKER?
b) 20,000 cycles per minute = 333 1/3 Hz (cycles per second)... dishwashing in the key of E#!
also, look! the internet!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bostworld/2152048164/in/photostream/
Make Kosher toaster bacon and we'll talk...
It's worth noting that the contributor is the same Derrick Bostrom that played drums for the Meat Puppets. Which, for my money, makes it way more awesome.
How is it that nobody's developed toaster bacon yet? Get on that, Hawking!
Done:
Turkey Bacon
Duck Bacon
Beef Bacon
Lamb Bacon
Tofu Bacon
Doesn't anyone remember Reddi Bacon, from about 1970?
http://www.nowpublic.com/food-ideas-just-didn-t-cut-mustard
#4 "a) transducer... you mean a SPEAKER?"
Not for nuttin', but a speaker *is* a transducer, as is a microphone, as is a guitar pickup, etc.
Just sayin'
Wireless cardiac monitors? I wonder if they are free with the purchase of six packs of toaster bacon...
Oh, and @#4: This sonic transducer, it is I suppose some kind of audio-vibratory-physio-molecular transport device?
...Lessee, let's take each of these and see how far they got by 1975:
* Ultrasonic dishwashers - IIRC, these eventually got trashed by every Appliance R&D house because - you guessed it - they never could find the right combination of frequencies to keep from breaking the glasses!
* combination electronic oven and food freezers - They still don't exactly have them today, and it's more of a logisical reason than a technological one. You simply *want* to keep the cold from the heat and vice versa, so neither interfere with one another.
* portable ovens - Microwave, obviously, and if you want to stretch it a bit and include a wok or those first frydaddies.
* toaster bacon - It's here now, but to be honest that part of the future's not what it's cooked up to be.
* triple purpose TV unit - made unnecessary by the cheap portable TV explosion of the 70's.
* wireless cardiac monitors - they have them now, but cables and sensors are still preferred.
* irradiated canned beans - Probably. Might explain some forms of flatulence.
* automatic language translaion - ya ni govoriyoot po-angliskii, tovarisch!
But nobody could foresee the AMC Pacer, ABBA, Chico and the Man, feathered hair, leather daddies, or bowls full of cocaine on the coffee tables of America.
Why stop at toaster bacon? How about chocolate-chip pancakes wrapped around a sausage on a stick?
Oh.
I want the wool sweater that burrhead's wearing.
Is that Derrick Bostrom the drummer from the Meat Puppets?
I just gotta say that aside from the microwave, there was also the amazing invention - the toaster oven - that pretty much is used for "tabletop broiling" and that sort of thing. And, imo, a toaster oven sure makes tastier food than a microwave does. ;) Of course, you have to wait 4 hours....
We're never going to get to the future until the dinosaurs are done dying.
"operate on the PRINCIPAL"??
I wonder if that was a vintage gaffe.
I want to know; is the 'Oven In The Round' a 'Lean, Mean, Fat Burnin' Machine' like the George Forman Grill, or is it just designed to; "...point the way to new informality in the home."?
@4 MHotel: Pretty sure 20,000 cycles per minute is just a typo. It should be 20,000 cycles per second (20 kHz), which is a typical frequency for ultrasonic cleaners.
I'm still waiting for the kind of life Bradbury predicted in There Will Come Soft Rains. Everything, I mean, everything is automated. Of course, there's a nuclear explosion that kills everyone, but everything is automated!!
The older I get, the more I appreciate how brilliant the Danny Dunn books were. Danny Dunn and the Automatic House had the kids trapped in one of these demo "houses of the future"; it wasn't so much fun.
Disney Revives House of the Future
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=e021304A
"Lights and thermostats will automatically adjust when people walk into a room. Closets will help pick out the right dress for a party. Countertops will be able to identify groceries set on them and make menu suggestions."
How could they have foreseen toaster bacon, but not Batter Blaster? The two would work so well together.
As someone said re: Batter Blaster:
This is what science is FOR!
Amen.