© Mark Ollig
The first Consumer Electronics Show (CES) began on June 24, 1967, in New York City.
It included 200 exhibitors and 17,500 people attending the four-day event held at the New York Hilton Midtown and Americana New York Hotel.
This year’s CES in Las Vegas included 2,279 exhibitors, 44,500 in-person, and 40,000 virtual attendees during the two-day event.
New electronic devices presented during the 1967 CES included transistor radios, Hi-Fi (high-fidelity) stereo systems, 8-track tape players, cassette tape recorders, and compact color televisions using solid-state integrated circuitry.
Of course, the electronics shown during the first CES differ significantly from this year’s CES show; technological advancements over 55 years will do that.
I imagined transporting back in time to the 1967 CES and explaining to one of the attendees what the world of tech looked like in 2022.
In 1967, science fiction fans (count me in) watched the second season of “Star Trek” airing on NBC television, so those attending the 1967 CES had some idea of future technology.
“In 2022, we use pocket smartphones to make telephone calls," I said to Bob, attending the 1967 CES and standing near the electronics display case.
Bob was holding a General Electric AM transistor portable radio model P1730B.
He looked at me and replied, “Yeah? Well, we have those too. We call them communicators. I see Kirk and Spock using them every week on TV.”
“Yes,” I said, “but do Kirk and Spock see the person they are talking to on the communicator, take pictures, or run software applications using one?”
Bob kept fiddling with the transistor radio while I spoke.
“Or scan QR and barcodes, play games, listen to music, watch movies, shop online, use Google, browse the internet, surf the web, text message, and use GPS?” I asked him.
Bob replied, “Did you know this miniature radio contains six transistors and will play nonstop for more than a day using a 9-volt PP3 battery?”
He then put the transistor radio back on the display case.
“Um, I need to check out the new 8-track tape players,” Bob quickly says while briskly walking away before I could say anything.
When thinking about it, the 1967 Star Trek communicator has a homing signal capability, allowing the person holding it to be located via their coordinates (GPS) and beamed aboard the USS Enterprise using the ship's transporter.
I must digress back to the main subject of this column before I get carried away comparing Star Trek technology with what we have today.
Companies displaying products during the 1967 CES included 3M, Magnavox, Memorex, Motorola, Panasonic, Seeburg, Sony, Sylvania, Toshiba, Westinghouse, and Zenith.
One product by Seeburg was an LP record vertical-playing high-fidelity phonograph. It could hold up to 100 vinyl LP (Long Play) records.
“It’s the first basic change in home phonograph playing since the invention of the disc record in 1887 by Emile Berliners, a German immigrant,” said Seeburg vice president William Adair.
The January 1977 CES show was held in Chicago, with frigid 18 degrees below zero temperatures and 45 degrees below zero wind chills. CES attendees were advised not to go outside the hotels for their safety.
The year 1977 saw the introduction of three popular computers: the Apple II, Tandy Radio Shack TRS-8, and the Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor).
The same year saw the release of the Atari 2600 video game console, with 30 million units being sold until production ended in 1992.
There was no “internet” in 1977 using today's TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) communications network.
In 1977, ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) used Network Control Protocol (NCP) data packet-switching techniques to interconnect 111 host computers.
These host computers had names like PDP-10, DEC-2040, CDC-7600, NOVA-800, UNIVAC-1108, PARC-MAXC2, and IBM-360, along with other computer models by various manufacturers.
A logical map of the ARPANET from 1977 can be seen at https://bit.ly/3NexcAh.
ARPANET was the predecessor to today's internet.
It would not be until Jan. 1, 1983, when the ARPANET replaced NCP with TCP/IP.
Notable events I recall from 1977 include the movies “Saturday Night Fever” and “Star Wars,” the launch of Voyager 1 and 2, and the deaths of Elvis Presley and Groucho Marx.
During the summer, on weekends (if it didn’t rain), we went to an outdoor drive-in theater to watch a movie; at-home movie watching using Betamax and VHS tapes was still in its infancy.
July 28, 1977, Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper showed an advertisement from Superior Ford selling a 1977 Ford F150 V8 4X4 for $6,295. The average cost for a gallon of gasoline was 65 cents; do I miss that.
The top TV show during 1977 was the sitcom “Laverne & Shirley.” Who remembers the show’s start with Laverne and Shirley saying, “Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!”
And 1977 was also an excellent year to graduate from high school.
