2020: things that didn’t quite make the cut

This year we’ve covered gadgets and inventions from the 1800s and up. But there are plenty of other things that had anniversaries this year that we didn’t mention.

One of the most important inventions debuted in 1810 – the tin can. A key product of the industrial revolution, the tin can answered many of the millennia-old questions about how to preserve foodstuffs. More reliable and palatable than salting, drying, pickling and a variety of other methods this humble tin can meant food security for growing populations in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Also hailing from the nineteenth century was celluloid, a versatile class of materials that were pioneered in billiard balls in 1870, and then found their way into many other products from toys to films. However, celluloid’s habit of bursting into flames means that it is rarely used as a material today.

Canned food in a store in Hong Kong, Easter brooch with celluloid flowers

Somewhat related to celluloid is cellophane, a lightweight and flexible material that lent its properties to Scotch Tape, introduced in 1930. Also from 1930 – and perhaps a little bit more edible – is the Hostess Twinkie cake bar. Allegedly, Twinkies last forever – but eat a decade-old box at your own risk.

Vintage scotch tape container, Twinkie cake bars

Fast forward to 1960 and the white heat of technology forges something even more high-tech than sticky tape and cake bars, with the laser. Don’t ask me to explain how these things work, they just do. Pew pew.

Visible lasers being demonstrated

People who remember the home computers of the 1980s probably remember the Commodore VIC-20 – but it had an immediate predecessor in the shape of the VIC-1001 which was sold successfully in Japan only. The main difference between the two is that the VIC-1001 supports Japanese Katakana characters.

Commodore VIC-1001

By 1990 of course things were really getting more advanced. The Sega Game Gear was an 8-bit handheld console that carved a significant market for itself. Another 8-bit games machine, the Commodore 64 Games System (or simply the C64GS) was a more traditional console based closely on the legendary Commodore 64 home computer. The C64GS held great promise with the potential of a huge games library, but it failed to deliver in a spectacular way.

Sega Game Gear, Commodore 64 Games System

In the same year, the Macintosh Classic breathed a bit more life into a familiar format at a sub-$1000 price point, but the 68000 processor was getting a bit long in the tooth by then. More powerful, but three times the cost, was the 68030-based Macintosh IIsi which was much more forward-looking.

Apple Macintosh Classic, Macintosh IIsi

Handheld gadgets continued to develop, and in 2000 the Sharp J-SH04 was launched in Japan which was the world’s first recognisable camera phone, with a rear-facing 0.11 megapixel camera. It wasn’t great, but it set a pattern that other early camera phones improved on.  

Sharp J-SH04

That’s it for 2020, a difficult year for many people. Let’s hope that 2021 will be better. A big shout out to all those key workers, healthcare professionals and everybody trying to be socially responsible (or even just managing to keep themselves sane) this year. 

Image credits:
Canned food in a store in Hong Kong: Bairgae Daishou 33826 via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Easter brooch with celluloid flowers: Pinke via Flickr – CC BY-NC 2.0
Vintage scotch tape container: Improbcat via Wikimedia Commons – CC BY-SA 3.0
Twinkie cake bars: Photog Bill via Flickr - CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Visible lasers being demonstrated: US Navy via Wikimedia Commons – Public domain
Commodore VIC-1001: Thomas Conté via Flickr - CC BY-SA 2.0
Sega Game Gear: James Case via Flickr - CC BY 2.0
Commodore 64 Games System: Thomas Conté via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 2.0
Macintosh Classic: Christian Brockmann via Wikimedia Commons – CC0
Macintosh IIsi: Benoît Prieur via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 4.0
Sharp J-SH04: Morio via Wikimedia Commons - CC BY-SA 3.0

3Com Audrey (2000)

Introduced October 2000

These days we are glued to our mobile devices, wanting to access the web and applications wherever we are. For many the idea of having to sit and the computer to use the internet seems old-fashioned. Smartphones, tablets… and yes, maybe a laptop if it’s something serious.

Twenty years ago however, the internet was not a mobile experience. Cables, dial-up modems and old-fashioned PCs were the way to go. If you wanted to access the web while you were in – say – the kitchen, you’d be out of luck.

3Com had an idea. One of the stars of the dot com boom, they created a device that could enable you to access the internet from almost any room you wanted. Using cutting-edge technology and undoubtedly with an eye to the future, they introduced the 3Com Ergo Audrey (or just the “3Com Audrey”). 3Com weren’t into consumer computing, except for their Palm subsidiary, so this was a new market for them.

It looks like a dangerous environment but loads of us are working from home in worse

In some ways the Audrey was like a modern tablet – an 8” VGA-resolution touchscreen display was complemented by a compact design, a wireless keyboard and USB expansion ports. The beating heart of the Audrey was the QNX operating system, a Unix-like platform designed to run on small devices. The Audrey could access the web, email, personal information management tools and a variety of push content that could be selected by a rather retro knob. You could sync it with up to two Palm PDAs (back in the days when a Palm Pilot was still a big deal). For added quirkiness, the stylus plugged into the top of the unit and it lit up when you received an email. It sounded great, but there were some drawbacks.

Internet access was via a dial-up modem, although you could plug an Ethernet adapter into a USB port if you had Ethernet at home. Also, you had to power it from a wall socket, so it was tied to both the mains and a phone or network port. At $499 it was quite pricey, and it didn’t have the power of a contemporary laptop. And – probably mostly – people just didn’t have the need to do internet all the time from anywhere.

3Com envisaged the Audrey (named after Audrey Hepburn) as being the lead device in their new “Ergo” sub-brand, including a “Mannix” device for the living room and presumably an “Andrex” device for the toilet. Presumably then you’d need a phone line in every room, which would be a pest. Wireless networking was technically a thing back in 2000, but it wasn’t widespread.

Is the kitchen the natural environment for the Audrey? Or the box it came in?

Still, this was pretty exciting stuff and of course 3Com hadn’t seen the iPad which was still a decade away, so it all sort of made sense. If you hadn’t seen the iPad. Which they hadn’t. Which was a problem really, because in hindsight it was the iPad that consumers really went for, followed by ridiculously oversized smartphones. Consumers wanted a cheese soufflé, 3Com offered them a soggy omelette instead.

It was a moderate success, but the dot com crash sent investors running away from tech shares and 3Com cancelled the Audrey and all the other Ergo devices in the summer of 2001. Some of the unsold inventory ended up in the hands of hackers who discovered how to jailbreak QNX and do their own things with it, turning these remaindered devices into something like a prototype Raspberry Pi.

Twenty years on and the Audrey is largely forgotten, along with 3Com who eventually vanished without trace into HP (along with their one-type subsidiary Palm). QNX was bought by RIM and turned up in the catastrophic BlackBerry Z10 in 2013, but despite that it still successfully soldiers on in embedded systems. As for the Audrey, you can pick one up for a few tens of dollars from sellers in the US but if exporting it you’ll need to watch the voltage on the power supply.

Image credits:
Andrew Turner via Flickr - CC BY 2.0
Alessandra Cimatti via Flickr - CC BY 2.0

Sony PlayStation 2 (2000)

Sony PlayStation 2

Launched March 2000

Sony had been something of a late entrant into the games console, coming to market in the early 1990s in what was essentially a grudge match with Nintendo. Both companies had worked together in 1988 to make a CD-ROM add-on to the Nintendo Super NES console which fell apart spectacularly.

Sony became keen to demonstrate its expertise in consumer electronics, and this led to the original PlayStation console launched in 1994. The PlayStation was a successful fifth-generation console that beat Nintendo’s offering by a full year and a half.

Things move on of course, and in 2000 Sony announced the successor to the original PlayStation, imaginatively called the PlayStation 2 (or “PS2”). Based around a heavily customised MIPS RISC processor called the “Emotion Engine” combined with powerful graphics and audio processors, the PlayStation 2 was a massive leap forward from previous generations.

Bundled with an upgrade of the legendary DualShock controller, the PlayStation also had a wide variety of other peripherals that could be used for gameplay. One crucial feature it also came with was an integrated DVD player at a time when these were very uncommon and rather expensive.

Decent games took a little while to become available, but the PlayStation 2 maintained hardware compatibility with the original PlayStation (retconned as the “PS One”). After a few months the number of games started to increase, boosting the popularity of the PS2. The best-selling game on the platform was 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

It had its flaws – in particular online services on the PS2 were clunky and poorly though-out. But overall it was a well-executed packaging of hardware with a strong suite of software to go with it. Selling over 150 million units plus a staggering 1.5 billion games, the PS2 is – just about – the best-selling video console ever.

Later revisions of the PS2 were smaller and cheaper, but it continued to be popular even after the launch of the PlayStation 3 in 2006... in fact the last PS2 units shipped in January 2013 after being in production for more than 12 years.

The PS2 cemented Sony’s place in the console market, and it was largely responsible for the demise of Sega and a difficult period for Nintendo as well. Ultimately the only thing that really made a stand against Sony was Microsoft’s Xbox platform – between Sony and Microsoft eventually the entire old order of games consoles was swept aside.

Because of the large numbers of PS2s sold, there are quite a lot available for not very much money – usually including a collection of bundled games. There are plenty of buyers guides too if you fancy a bit of low-cost retro gaming.

Image credit: Evan-Amos via Wikimedia Commons

Nokia 3310 (2000) vs Nokia 3310 (2017)

There has been some excitement in recent weeks with a leak that Nokia was re-releasing the classic 3310 handset from 2000. But would a company really be brave enough to try to punt something nearly two decades old to consumers? Well, the answer was.. no.

The original 3310 was a simple monochrome phone, but it had a reputation for being tough, having a long battery life, swappable covers and also some simple games including the legendary Nokia snake. And that really was about it - no mobile data, no Bluetooth, no music playback and it didn't even have polyphonic ringtones.

Nokia 3310 (2000)

Superficially with a similar shape and footprint, the new Nokia 3310 tries to relive some of the magic of the old one. The most obvious immediate change is the much larger 2.4" QVGA display on the front and the 2 megapixel camera on the back. Despite efforts, it's clear that the keypad reflects that this is a Series 30+ device as are all contemporary Nokia feature phones.. in fact, the specification is very similar to devices such as the Nokia 222 but in a rather different case.
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Nokia 3310 (2017)

Nokia 3310 (2000) vs 3310 (2017)

Other features include a music player, FM radio, expandable memory, Bluetooth and some rudimentary 2.5G data support. The 1200 mAh battery is rated as giving up to 31 days standby time and 22 hours talktime on the single-SIM model, and there's also a dual-SIM variant available. And yes.. Snake is still there. The covers don't seem to be changeable, but are available in a choice of red, yellow, blue or grey.

HMD (who make the phones under licence) say that the retail price will be approximately €49. In truth of course this isn't really a relaunch of anything - it is just one of those feature phones that Nokia never stopped making in a different case. But it's still a striking and friendly but somewhat odd-looking device that should appeal to certain types of customer. Retro in some ways, but not in others.. it does at least serve as a reminder as to why we all used to own Nokias in the early days of mobile phones.

Image sources: Nokia and HMD Global