The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was hosted from June 25 to 28, 1967, in New York City, NY.
The Electronic Industries Association (EIA), which later became the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), organized the event at the New York Hilton and Americana hotels.
At the first CES, 117 exhibitors took part, and 17,500 people attended.
In 1967, New York highlighted the future of technology with compact devices such as transistor radios, stereos, and small black-and-white televisions.
One highlight was Sony’s New York exhibition during CES week, which showed a seven-inch color TV with a Chromatron tube and a one-inch black-and-white TV.
These were examples of advanced engineering that were not yet ready for consumers.
The June 19, 1967, issue of Merchandising Week also mentioned Sony’s portable videotape recorder and camera set.
It was a lightweight, battery-powered system for outdoor use, expected to cost about $1,000 (about $9,700 today) and to launch later that year.
By the mid-1970s, CES in Chicago became the site of a major format battle in home entertainment between Sony’s Betamax and JVC’s Video Home System (VHS).
In 1972, Philips introduced its N1500 videocassette recorder, one of the first consumer video cassette recorders (VCRs).
In the years that followed, Sony’s Betamax and JVC’s VHS competed, with recording time and price as the main factors.
While Betamax was often seen as technically superior, VHS offered two hours of recording time, enough for a movie or a sporting event, compared with Betamax’s original one hour.
JVC licensed its technology to other companies, which lowered costs and helped VHS take over the market.
CES became a place to see early video game consoles and home computers, as companies brought gaming and computing into people’s homes.
In 1976, while attending Brainerd High School, I took an audiovisual television class.
We could earn extra credit by recording educational TV programs in the evenings for the school library.
I used a Sony Betamax video recorder and 60-minute Betamax tapes from Sony and 3M.
The picture and sound quality were impressive at the time, and in case you were wondering, I did earn an “A” in the class, though I am not bragging.
CES was first hosted in Las Vegas, NV, in 1978 and later became its main location.
In the 1980s and 1990s, CES introduced consumers to compact discs, early camcorders, and home video game systems such as the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The event also showed how the industry was moving from bulky picture tubes to flat-panel and high-definition TVs.
At the 1996 CES, the Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) was a major highlight. DVDs soon helped bring about the end of VHS tapes.
In the early 2000s, CES was the scene of another format battle, this time between Toshiba’s high-definition DVD (HD DVD) and Sony’s Blu-ray Disc.
The contest ended when movie studios chose Blu-ray over HD DVD.
Sarah Szabo served as public relations event manager for the Consumer Electronics Association during the 2007 CES, hosted Jan. 8 to 11 in Las Vegas.
In 2007, I had the chance to ask Szabo a few questions about that year’s show.
She said we could expect major advances in consumer electronics, with trends focused on better device connectivity, greater portability, and closer links between technology and content.
That column from Jan. 15, 2007, is available online at https://bit.ly/453PtLM.
In the 2000s, CES became a key venue for launching smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, demonstrating how computing, telecommunications, and consumer electronics were converging.
In the 2010s and 2020s, CES increasingly focused on automotive technology, digital health, and smart-home products.
The 2026 CES brought together more than 4,100 exhibitors and more than 148,000 attendees across approximately 2.6 million square feet at the Las Vegas Convention Center and The Venetian Resort.
More than 6,900 journalists, content creators, and industry analysts from around the world covered the event.
This year’s CES put the spotlight on advances in artificial intelligence (AI), digital health, robotics, and automotive technology.
Many of the event’s exhibitors presented how AI is finding its way into more real-world applications.
During this year’s CES, Intel unveiled its Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” processors, designed for everyday laptops and personal computers (PCs).
RCA, the Radio Corporation of America, also celebrated its 100th anniversary with a nostalgic exhibit of vintage analog televisions from the late 1940s and 1950s.
Visitors were said to be able to feel static electricity on the glass screens and see the warm glow of cathode-ray tube (CRT) technology.
A 1946 RCA 630-TS, the first mass-produced TV, and the 1946 General Electric (GE) 950, one of the first color models, were there, too.
It was the 59th CES, and even amid today’s AI headlines, those old TV screens reminded folks how far consumer technology has come.
