Word: gadgeteers
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...wildest dreams of the hi-fi industry, which has always made the most of planned obsolescence. Whatever the hi-fi fan bought, it was declared outmoded by all the pseudo-scientific trade journals almost before he could get it wired up, with the warning that only a still newer gadget could keep him in the forefront of the hip. For the trade, stereo had a classic simplicity: all the hi-fi fan had to do was exactly duplicate the equipment he already had (any change or cheaper equipment would spoil the "balance...
...over the U.S., a new order of restless American stalks city and countryside carrying tiny transistors. He can't stand silence. With his gadget turned up full-blast, the bleatnik goes about his pursuits with ear and mind cocked to sportscasts, disk-jockeywockey and what passes for pop music. He plods along, swinging his radio like an attaché case, or stuffs it into his shirt pocket, while the unrelenting blabber transists him like exhaust fumes. If he is using an earpiece receiver, identification may be more difficult, but there are certain telltale signs, as there are of hopheads...
Looking slightly prehistoric with its long, grasping, enameled neck, the gadget ($29.95) allows the housewife to follow an easy double routine: she pops her dirty clothes into the washer, then washes her hair, sets it while the wet clothes are drying, then attaches the gadget to the emptied dryer and puts her head under it. She emerges dripped and dried, but possibly wondering about the day when she herself might be folded neatly by her husband, and placed with great care in the linen closet...
Hunt's suggestion touched off theoretical research that looked better and better as it progressed. In 1959 Columbia University's Hudson Laboratories took over the development of Artemis and called on Frank Massa, president of the Massa Division of Cohu Electronics Inc. to build the necessary gigantic gadget for creating sound. No such underwater transducer (noisemaker) had been built before, but the very first units were successful. The largest Massa transducer is now installed in the converted Navy tanker, Mission Capistrano. It is so huge that when it is retracted, part of its soft, length shows above...
...Patterson, inventor of the first automated tobacco machine. After World War II, Morehead Patterson decided that the company had to grow or die. Searching for new products, he turned up a crude prototype of an automatic bowling-pm setter. To get the necessary cash to develop the intricate gadget, Patterson swapped off AMF stock to acquire eight small companies with fast-selling products. The Pinspotter, perfected and put on the market in 1951, helped to turn bowling into the most popular U.S. competitive sport. Despite keen competition from the Brunswick Corp., AMF has remained the world's largest maker...