THE HISTORY ISSUE
Great moments in the march of technolust.
__Fire Wire __
First Thomas Edison created the quadraplex telegraph. Then the phonograph. And now he has created light. His incandescent bulb screws into an electrified metal base and glows brightly when it's switched on. A carbonized bamboo filament inside a small glass globe, the bulb is both beautiful to the eye and efficient to mass-produce because the shape can be blown rather than molded. Such considerations are important to the inventor, who has already founded the Edison Electric Light Company and is developing plans to manufacture lamps.
__Edison lightbulb: available 1880. __
__Postscript __
You never know when inspiration will strike, so you should have a typewriter that's ready for action no matter where you are. Weighing just 8½ pounds, Remington's road warrior is the first writing machine that's truly portable. Thanks to its cleverly designed retracting type bar, the machine stows away in a 3½" tall by 11" wide by 10¾" deep leather-covered carrying case. Setup is a breeze: Just pop off the cover, flip a lever to raise the type bar, and start pounding the keys.
__Remington Portable No. 1 typewriter: available 1920. __
__Visionary __
Decades ago, glass artisans in Venice and Florence learned how to shape a lens that would make objects appear larger. That discovery has already given us the handheld magnifying glasses used by aging scholars. Now a Dominican monk named Alessandro di Spina has come up with a better design. Di Spina's spectacles - two small lenses mounted in a lightweight frame made of wood or bone - rest comfortably on the bridge of your nose. The world may never look the same again.
__Eyeglasses: available 1291. __
__View Finder __
A quarter century after the clunky Brownie camera swept the nation, engineer Oskar Barnack has developed a compact solution to photography's most vexing problem: cumbersome equipment. Made by the Leitz Optical Instrument Company in Wetzlar, Germany, the elegant new camera uses inexpensive 35-mm film adapted from the motion picture industry. A long strip of the film is rolled within a special, removable cartridge, making it possible to shoot as many as 36 exposures in quick succession. Now that's rapid-fire convenience!
__Leica I camera: available 1925. __
__In the Can __
There's nothing immediately impressive about the new metal canister from Donkin, Hall & Gamble. But combined with the company's airtight canning process, the simple iron container (coated with a layer of tin to prevent corrosion) will keep food fresh for years. The canisters are lighter and less likely to break than glass jars - qualities that are particularly important to those on the go. The Royal Navy is a DHG customer, and it's been said that explorer John Ross brought a supply of the company's roasted veal and carrot offerings with him on his search for the Northwest Passage. Now if only someone would develop a better way to open these cans. The hammer-and-chisel method is a drag.
__Donkin, Hall & Gamble canned food: available 1818. __
__Tailgunner __
Chalk up another victory for General Motors design chief Harley Earl, who's shaped every Caddie since the 1934 La Salle. The '48, the first new model of the postwar era, reflects the power and panache of the military effort. Its 348-cubic-inch cast-iron V-8 engine drove the M-24 tank Cadillac built between 1942 and '45. Its bodywork was inspired by the graceful lines of the P-38 fighter plane. Subtle clues abound, but the P-38 influence is easiest to see in the humped design of the taillights. Cadillac is officially touting this as "rudder-type styling," though rumor has it that Earl refers to the new appendages as "tail fins."
__Cadillac Series 62 Club Coupe: available 1948. __
__Hole in One __
Baltimore entrepreneurs Duncan Black and Alonzo Decker have brought us a bottle-cap machine, a shock absorber, and a cotton picker. Now their 6-year-old company has introduced an innovative electric drill. Its pistol-grip handle, inspired by the ergonomic design of the Colt .45 handgun, marks a significant improvement over older drills - awkward tools that require two-man teams to operate. The trigger switch allows for lightning-fast startups, and beneath the sleek skin you'll find ball-thrust bearings, steel gears, and a forced-draft system that keeps the motor cool. Put simply, the new tool will change the way you think about electric drills.
__Black & Decker pistol-grip drill: available 1916. __
__Multitask __
With its folding blades and tools, the multifunction knife carried by troops in Switzerland's army since 1890 has inspired cultlike devotion among workers and outdoorsmen. Now a Swiss cutler named Karl Elsener has introduced his Offiziersmesser, or Officer's Knife - a tool that does more and weighs less. Like the old favorite, the new model features a main blade, an awl, a can opener, and a screwdriver. It also adds a smaller cutting blade and a sturdy corkscrew. With this gadget in your pocket, you'll be ready for almost any situation. Still, we can't help wondering what other tools could be added to this sleek number.
__Officer's Knife: available 1897. __
__Write On __
Remember the refillable ballpoint pen? Despite a few faddish years of postwar popularity, they were leaky, undependable, in constant need of refills, and expensive. No wonder consumers held on to their trusty fountain pens. But the dirt-cheap Cristal may force some to reconsider. The hard plastic body is faceted like a pencil, with a tiny hole on the side that allows air to displace ink expended during use. And the soft plastic reservoir inside each Cristal holds enough ink to draw a line more than 2 miles long.
__Bic Cristal Pen: available 1953. __
__Rotary Club __
Say good-bye to your clunky candlestick-style telephone with its separate mouth- and earpieces. Designed by Henry Dreyfuss, the Western Electric Model 300 combines all the necessary components in one sleek, sturdy package. The speaker and the microphone are mounted in the shapely handset. And the 300 even hides a bell inside the base, so you no longer need a separate ringer box. The base-unit housing is made of die-cast zinc, and the handset is constructed of rugged Bakelite plastic. Western Electric calls this a desk set model, but we don't think it should be relegated to the office.
__Western Electric Model 300 telephone: available 1937. __
__Intel Inside __
It's getting harder and harder to be a know-it-all. Between the exploration of the New World and the flourishing scholarship in philosophy, history, and science, how can you hope to keep up? The new Encyclopædia Britannica, published in Scotland, is your answer. Unlike other recent attempts to catalog the sum of human understanding - see Diderot's ranting Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers of 1765 - Britannica is a model of convenient organization and authoritative scholarship. Spanning every topic from Aabam to Zygophyllum, the three leather-bound volumes offer up 2,391 pages and 160 engraved copperplate illustrations. Now it's easy to have the world at your fingertips - all you have to do is make room on your bookshelf.
__Encyclopædia Britannica, First Edition: available 1768. __
__Turnaround __
Thousands of years ago, Australian Aborigines developed a hunting weapon called the kylie. Now they've adapted that throwing stick, bending it at the center and rounding it along one side. The boomerang, as it is called, is more toy than tool. When thrown, it spins as far as 50 yards before circling back to its starting point. The secret lies in the airfoil design of the "wings," which gives the object lift.
__Boomerang: available 8000 BC. __
__Out of the Box __
It's flexible, airtight, odorless, nontoxic, and lightweight. It can be molded and shaped into practically any form. It's polyethylene - the synthetic developed during the war by former DuPont chemist Earl Tupper. The Army incorporated polyethylene parts into the design of new gas masks. Now Tupper has introduced a peacetime use for his wonder material: Tupperware. The colorful line of food-storage containers comes with a patented sealed-lid system to retain moisture and protect food from the harsh, dry air inside refrigerators. With so many sizes and shapes available - from drinking tumblers to serving bowls - Tupperware gives housewives a reason to celebrate.
__Tupperware: available 1947. __
__Real Time __
Portable timepieces are a great idea, but they suffer from two major drawbacks: They're costly to buy and a nuisance to repair. That's because most pocket watches are one-of-a-kind creations that must be tediously assembled and maintained by an experienced (and expensive) craftsman. But the Massachusetts-based Waltham Watch Company (formerly known as the American Watch Company) has a solution. Harnessing the powers of mass production, Waltham designs timepieces with interchangeable parts that are identical from one watch to the next. That means they are cheaper to manufacture today - and will be cheaper to repair tomorrow. So let traditionalists wear custom-made watches; the future belongs to the machine-made, high-precision technology of Waltham.
__Waltham watch: available 1860. __
