5 Nostalgic Electronics and Gadgets That Will Instantly Remind Gen Xers of Their Parents

It’s always interesting to view technological development not only in terms of prospective future developments, but also as a gigantic continuum of devices that have come before us. For example, members of Generation

The electronic devices you grow up with leave an indelible mark on your memory, even if you weren’t personally the one using them. Whether one of your parents worked at home on an electric typewriter or your entire family was excited about your first color television, these devices not only made their mark in the memories of those whose families used them, but also helped set the stage for the many incredible advancements that would follow them. The 1960s and beyond were a fascinating time for the development of consumer technology, and Generation X was able to experience it at its most formative while in a formative state themselves.

The practice of canning food for preservation and storage purposes dates back to the 1800s, followed by portable can openers in the 1850s and rotary can openers in the 1870s. Of course, none of these were “gimmicks” per se, as they all still relied quite heavily on hand movement. This changed significantly with the invention of the electric can opener, which would make retrieving the ingredients for your weekday dinner much easier. The first electric can opener was patented in 1931, but unfortunately at the time a large portion of homes in the United States didn’t yet have electricity, so it didn’t really find an audience.

The idea lay dormant for a few decades, until the Bodles, a father-daughter garage-working inventor pair, created the first free-standing electric can opener that could find a comfortable place on any kitchen counter. The Bodles’ creation went on sale in 1956 under the Udico brand, becoming a major holiday hit that year and prompting many other manufacturers to follow suit. Even with the rise of Generation X a decade later, countertop electric can openers remained a common fixture in kitchens across the United States.

Before the invention and spread of the Internet, if you wanted to send a long distance message to someone, all it took was the postal service or nothing. Telephones were around long before Generation X, but talking to someone on the phone wasn’t quite the same as sending a quick communication. The first form of sending messages other than mail, the fax machine, would be popularized in the 1960s, after a period of slow growth several decades earlier.

Fax, which is short for facsimile, has its roots in electrically printing telegraphs of the 1800s, but the technology truly emerged in the 1920s. Early fax machines could send both text and simple images via radio waves, but the equipment was bulky and expensive, so no one really owned their own private device. The big change came in 1964 with Xerox’s release of its first fax machine and, more importantly, the release of its more compact Magnafax fax machine two years later.

Rather than radio waves, this new fax machine could send text and photos over telephone lines, making the technology much more accessible and affordable. With this development, home faxes have become a business tool for workers in and out of the office, as well as families looking to send photos and messages back and forth.

By the 1950s, radio and television were firmly entrenched in the public consciousness as definitive sources of entertainment, offering both music and serialized stories. However, neither medium was in any way portable, with radios and televisions requiring massive devices that took up a large portion of any living room. However, just before Generation X actually arrived, radio in particular underwent a major change that finally allowed you to take your music on the go.

In 1955, Sony launched its very first transistor radio, the TR-55. Compared to vacuum tube-powered radios of the time, this radio was truly tiny, small enough to fit on a table or counter. This product was a great success and encouraged Sony to go even further with its next model in 1957, the TR-63, Sony’s first pocket radio and first export model. This little musical brick was small enough to fit in the pocket of an average shirt, and it was Sony’s first major international success. Over the next decade, portable transistor radios became the order of the day, whether lounging in the yard or toiling on a construction site.

The first consumer typewriters were released to the public in the late 1800s, revolutionizing the way we create letters and work documents. Although the value of the typewriter cannot be overstated, it was not perfect; keys would get stuck, sheets would get misaligned, and other miscellaneous tasks would hamper your typing process. These problems remained constant until 1961, when IBM changed the game with the first electric typewriter, the IBM Selectric.

The Selectric would be the device that would bring typewriters closer to the practical mechanical keyboards we know and love today. Electric typewriters had technically existed for several decades before, but they were just ordinary typewriters with electrical components, which made them easier to type and not much else. The Selectric, however, introduced a new type of sphere-shaped striker instead of the usual flat strikebar. This spherical-like element could tilt and rotate on its own, eliminating the cumbersome paper cart and allowing users to quickly switch between different fonts. Any Gen Xer whose parents worked from home in some capacity has probably seen an electric typewriter, as they absolutely dominated office machines throughout the ’80s.

Regular television broadcasts began in the late 1920s, and the general public became truly invested in it as an entertainment and information medium around the 1940s and 1950s. However, in those early days, television was presented exclusively in monochrome, as color screen technology had not yet been completely mastered. In the early 1960s, manufacturers began tinkering with color displays, trying various technological methods to make them work, but the company that would ultimately land the mark would, once again, be Sony.

In 1968, four years after the advent of Generation Color television was no longer just a gadget; it was the gold standard, and Sony made a pretty penny, to say the least. Chances are those who grew up during this era remember a parent bringing home their first color television, and chances are it was a Trinitron.