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The 1970s witnessed an explosion of innovative electronic gadgets that revolutionized how we work, play, and communicate, from pocket calculators and digital watches to home computers and handheld games.
The first pocket-sized electronic calculator, the Busicom LE-120A "HANDY", was introduced in early 1971 and used the first "calculator on a chip", the Mostek MK6010.
By the late 1970s, calculators were affordable to most people due to advances like LCD displays and CMOS chips.
Some had credit-card sized Casio Mini Card LC-78 able to run for months on button cells.
The Polaroid SX-70, introduced in 1972, was the first instant SLR camera that ejected photos that developed automatically without mess or chemicals.
The SX-70 was used by Skylab 3 and 4 astronauts in 1973-74 to photograph the sun from orbit, and it had an aspheric mirror system designed by Dr. Land himself for the viewfinder.
The Sony Walkman, introduced in 1979, was the first portable cassette player that allowed people to listen to music privately through headphones while walking around.
The Walkman was used by millions during the 1980s aerobics craze and even made it into space on the Space Shuttle, but was discontinued in 2010 after selling 385 million units as music moved to CDs and digital formats.
The Atari 2600, released in 1977, was the first widely successful programmable video game console that used ROM cartridges and microprocessor-based hardware.
Its success led to a gaming boom in the early 1980s with millions of units sold, but Atari made some poor business decisions like releasing a rushed, low-quality port of E.T. that contributed to the video game crash of 1983.
The 2600 was redesigned in 1986 and remained in production until 1992.
The first VCRs for home use were introduced by Sony and Philips in the early 1970s, but the technology didn't achieve mass-market success until the 1980s when the VHS format won out over Sony's Betamax in a fierce format war, despite Betamax being first to market in 1975.
Surprisingly, movie studios initially tried to block the sale of VCRs, with the head of the MPAA infamously comparing their impact on the American public to the Boston Strangler, but after losing a Supreme Court case, the studios discovered that selling and renting videos became a huge source of income.
The first digital pocket watches appeared in the late 19th century, but the first digital electronic wristwatch was the Hamilton/Electro-Data Pulsar LED prototype developed in 1970, which retailed for the hefty sum of $2,100 in 18-carat gold.
The popularity of LED watches waned in the 1970s due to their high power consumption, being quickly superseded by LCD watches which used less power and were more convenient since the time was always visible without pushing a button.
Sony's Betamax format, introduced in 1975, initially had superior image quality to JVC's VHS which came out a year later, but despite this, VHS won the videotape format war due to better marketing and longer recording times.
Surprisingly, despite losing market share in the 1980s, Sony continued producing Betamax recorders until 2002 and Betamax tapes until 2016, and developed high definition Betamax variants in the late 80s capable of resolving 500 lines, almost double the ~250 lines of standard Betamax and VHS.
The Compact Cassette was invented by Lou Ottens and his team at Philips in 1963, initially for dictation machines, but it became wildly popular for distributing music after the introduction of the Sony Walkman in 1979 allowed people to listen to cassettes privately on the go.
Cassette tapes played an important political role, being used to spread sermons that helped overthrow the Shah of Iran in 1979 and enabling underground music scenes to develop behind the Iron Curtain in the 80s.
The Apple II, introduced in 1977, was one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak.
Between 1977 and 1993, somewhere between 5-6 million Apple II series computers were sold, and it was widely used in American schools, had a large software library including the first spreadsheet program VisiCalc.
It remained in production for 16 years with the last model, the IIe, discontinued in 1993.
The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor), released in 1977, was one of the first mass-market, all-in-one home computers, with a built-in display, keyboard, and cassette deck.
Despite its early release and limitations like a small monochrome screen and lack of programmable graphics characters, the PET line sold over 200,000 units before being discontinued in 1982, finding success primarily in schools due to its rugged metal construction.
The Speak & Spell, released by Texas Instruments in 1978, was the first handheld electronic device with interchangeable game cartridges that utilized their innovative Solid State Speech technology.
The Speak & Spell featured prominently in the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial as a key component of E.T.'s interstellar communicator, and its voice synthesis has been used in songs by numerous popular musical artists like Beck, Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode, as well as been modified by circuit benders for use as an electronic instrument.
The Magnavox Odyssey series, launched in 1972 with the world's first commercial video game console, evolved through multiple iterations until 1978, including dedicated consoles and even a TV with a built-in game system.
The original Magnavox Odyssey used removable printed circuit board cards without any programming to select games, while later models like the Odyssey 4000 featured color graphics and detachable joysticks.
DiscoVision, launched in 1978 as the original name for LaserDisc technology, was a pioneering home video format developed by MCA that evolved from an optical videodisc system to a patent holding company.
After MCA's abrupt failure with DiscoVision in 1981, some of its technical staff went on to form MCA Video Games in an attempt to produce video game cartridges.
Simon, an electronic memory game invented by Ralph H. Baer and Howard J. Morrison in 1978, became an iconic pop culture symbol of the 1970s and 1980s.
The game was launched at Studio 54 in New York City, an unexpected venue for a children's toy.
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Mattel's Football, released in 1977 as the company's second handheld electronic game, became an unexpected cultural phenomenon after Sears initially underestimated demand and halted production, only to ramp it up to 500,000 units per week by early 1978.
Its playing field only has 9 yards instead of 10 due to technical limitations, yet it still became one of the most cloned and pirated handheld games in history, spawning numerous imitators and even official re-releases decades later.
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