Steve Wozniak’s US Festival Predicted the Melding of Tech and Music
The US Festival, held in 1982 and 1983, was the kind of music happening where you could watch bands on giant screens while grabbing some shade under a satellite dish.
This Guy Riding a Fake Horse Is the Peak of 90s VR
This horse simulator, crazy as it looks, shares a lineage with the flight simulators of the 90s—which meant it was at the vanguard of the era’s graphical and virtual reality output.
That Time Steven Spielberg and Sega Built the Arcade of Your Dreams
GameWorks was a Hollywood-powered barcade so glamorous, Carmen Elektra hosted its launch.
The MP3 Player That Made Every Other MP3 Player Possible
The Diamond Rio PMP 300 could barely even hold a single album, but it was a hugely important device in the history of digital music.
Was This the Best Small Computer of the 90s?
The keyboard-laden Psion Series 3 personal digital assistant helped prove that computers could be both small and highly functional—though the real star of the device turned out to be its operating system.
Copies of Copies: The Surprisingly Complicated Process of Making a CD
It takes a whole lot of steps to get an optical disc ready for your CD Walkman—yet it has a surprising amount in common with pressing a record.
This Is What 1970s Motion Capture Tech Looked Like
How one of the most infamous TV shows of all time—one apparently cancelled in the middle of its first episode—gave viewers a very early look at motion capture technology.
This Build-It-Yourself Watch from the 70s Was Impossible to Put Together
The story of the Sinclair Black Watch, a digital watch that, for some reason, was sold in kit form. It was not an easy watch to build.
This Trippy Image Shows How Supercomputers Helped Build Better Jet Engines
It's not a psychedelic desktop wallpaper from the future; it’s a compressor blade simulation from the past, produced by a Cray supercomputer.
This Tiny Terminal Was France’s Version of AOL
A French telecom scheme to replace the phone book with a dumb terminal soon became the world’s first mainstream online network. Problem is, Minitel never really evolved past that point.
Virtual Insanity: Atari’s Last-Ditch Attempt to Save the Jaguar
Mocked by the press and struggling to make headway, Atari fruitlessly tried to revive interest in the Jaguar with a 1995 virtual reality demo at E3. The vaporware was strong with this one.
Apple's Failed Camera Cost $750 and Could Only Take 8 Pictures
The story of the Apple QuickTake 100, a primitive early digital camera that had Apple’s name on the front but another company’s technology buried inside.