Tuesday, September 28, 2010 at 7:09AM My first videocamera was a Sony Hi-8 Handycam, so this ad for the original 8mm handycam has a special place in my heart. With that said, I have to say I'm a little disturbed by some of the scenes, and voyeuristic undertones to the ad. If a hand popping out of a sack to film Santa with a child, then I guess in 1986, this was the camera for you:
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 7:09AM Sure you probably know that before today's integrated circuits, many electronic devices, especially radios and TVs were made possible via "a series of tubes." Vacuum tubes, to be precise. What you might not know however, is since the tube was a part that periodically needed replaced, similar to a lightbulb, tube manufacturers appealed directly to consumers in touting their tubes as better than the competition:
Image: Triode Electronics
You can see more retro tube ads here.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 7:03AM According to the youtube poster (jimhoyt), this video was part of a presentation at an Apple sales meeting in 1984. It's a fast-paced, rah, rah, look at the super-early years of the company. Sure today we take the Ken Burns effect for granted, but the sheer number of zooms and pans on stills must have really gotten the blood pumping in the summer of '84:
Tuesday, July 6, 2010 at 7:06AM I know, I know, from the title, you must be wondering how impressive could an ad for an accessory to a gaming system be? Well, SEGA spared no expense in this eight-minute look at how 500MB of gaming power would change the world forever. Ok, it's no '1984' ad, but I can confidently say this is the most ambitious video for a CD-ROM drive ever:
Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at 6:31AM If you're a gamer today, sure you know who the big three companies are: Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. But would you believe once upon a time, a company called NEC was also vying for the gaming crown? Yes, the company (somewhat) known today for its chips, and with an interesting, varied history in everything from supercomputers to car batteries planned to take over the living room with the TurboGrafx 16:
Any former/current owners out there? I remember seeing the system, but I don't think I've ever played one.