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General Motors GM 1969 512 Electric Experimental EV

GM’s 1969 512 Electric Experimental was the Orange EV That Ate Detroit

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General Motors GM 1969 512 Electric Experimental EV XP-512
Photo credit: GM
Fifty-six years ago, General Motors dared to do something truly different. They parked a tangerine bubble at a trade-show turntable and asked people to take a good hard look. At Transpo ’72, visitors walked right up to the 512 Electric Experimental, noses just inches from its sleek fiberglass skin, wondering whether this thing was a car, a cockpit, or just some kind of wacky dream on wheels. Standing at a mere 86 inches long, the little GM looked for all the world like a Smart Fort Worth that had been sat upon – but as you looked closer, you could see that every curve was deliberate, every inch carefully thought out.

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Panasonic Mister Thin RF-015 Radio CIA Spy Gadget

Panasonic’s Mister Thin (RF-015) Radio is a Real-Life CIA Spy Gadget, Here’s a Closer Look

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Panasonic Mister Thin RF-015 Radio CIA Spy Gadget
Slide your hand into a 1977 dinner jacket, and you might find a silver cigarette case, a small lighter, or—tucked beside the silk lining—a rectangle barely larger than a deck of cards. When you open the snap, the leather wallet slides open to reveal a radio. Not a toy or a gimmick, but a full-fledged AM/FM receiver from Panasonic named Mister Thin (RF-015).

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YouTube 1995 Stream Netscape Browser

YouTube in 1995 Showcases Quest to Stream the Future on a 30-Year-Old Browser

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YouTube 1995 Stream Netscape Browser
Throaty Mumbo opens a box from the 1990s sealed with packaging tape and pulls out a copy of Netscape Navigator 4.5 that has been shrink wrapped for longer than he has been alive. The plastic wrapping “cracks” like thin ice on a winter pond. Inside, there’s a gleaming CD-ROM, a stack of floppy disks that appear to have been there for decades, and a gigantic 300-page manual that’s thicker than a phone book.

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Hercules Graphics Card

Long Before NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090, There was the Hercules Graphics Card

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Hercules Graphics Card
Businesses in the early 1980s were all about paperwork and figures. Spreadsheets were simply rows of figures, documents were heaped up page after page, and IBM PCs were the workhorses that handled all this data, with an option of two monitors. IBM chose Color Graphics Adapter, which provided a splash of color but was only 640 by 200 pixels, making text appear blocky and difficult to read. Then there was the Monochrome Display Adapter, which produced a 720 by 350 pixel screen in a clear green or amber. Hercules Computer Technology identified the gap and stepped in with a card that married both strengths without having to make any sacrifices

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1953 GM Futurliner Future Liner

Fascinating Look Back at the 1953 GM Futurliner, a Rolling Vision of Tomorrow

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1953 GM Futurliner Future Liner
In the early 1950s, America was on the cusp of a new era. World War II was fading into memory and the country was full of hope thanks to science and industry. Amidst all this progress General Motors unleashed the 1953 GM Futurliner, the embodiment of the era’s unlimited optimism. This was a 33-foot-long, 30,000 pound rolling billboard for the future, a machine built to wow small town America with tomorrow.

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RCA Studio II Game Console

Many Years Before the NES, There was RCA’s Studio II, the Forgotten Console That Dared to Dream

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RCA Studio II Game Console
In January 1977, a peculiar box appeared on the shelves of American electronics retailers, marking a company’s attempt to carve out a share of the expanding video game business. RCA, the radio and television behemoth, introduced the Studio II, a home video gaming device that transforms your TV into a “entertainment center for family pleasure.” But within a year, it had vanished, replaced by flashier competitors and relegated to clearance bins.

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Maximize 56K Dial-Up Internet YouTube

Pushing Dial-Up to the Max Equals Screaming Modems and a YouTube Streaming Dream

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Maximize 56K Dial-Up Internet YouTube
In an age where high-speed internet is as common as water, it’s easy to forget the days when connecting to the internet meant listening to your modem wail like a digital banshee. Dial-up internet, with its slow speeds, seems like a relic of the past. But a group of makers at The Serial Port decided to recreate this old nightmare to…watch a YouTube video via dial-up. Yes, YouTube, the bandwidth-hungry behemoth, is using a connection that can barely load a single webpage.

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