2018: things that didn’t quite make the cut

We’ve covered a range of stuff this year, as far back as 1888 and through to 1928, 1938, 1948, 1958, 1968, 1978, 1988, 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 (phew!). But quite a few things also had anniversaries this year. Here are some that we didn’t get to cover.

If you like spicy food, then there’s a good chance that you own some Tabasco sauce. The tabasco peppers the sauce contains originally came from the Mexican state of the same name, but the Tabasco branded sauce you typically see comes from Louisiana where both it and the McIlhenny Company were created in 1868.

One thing that you could put a dash of Tabasco in would be a Cup Noodle. Introduced by Nissin into Japan in 1958, the Cup Noodle eventually spread throughout the world, inspiring other very similar brands such as Pot Noodle in the UK.

Tabasco Sauce (1868), Cup Noodle (1958), Pepsi Cola (1898)

If you were looking for a beverage to wash your spicy Cup Noodle down with, Pepsi-Cola was invented in 1898 or you could try some Vimto, invented in Manchester in 1908 and popular with members of temperance societies who didn’t drink alcohol. Vimto also because a hit in many Muslim countries for the same reason.

1958 saw a peculiarly American take on a Scandinavian favourite with the launch of Swedish Fish. A brightly-coloured remake of the salty liquorice original, Swedish Fish remain popular in the United States today, although they contain no actual fish. Similarly, Jelly Babies contain no actual babies, but are also squishy and brightly coloured. Bassetts launched their well-known take on Jelly Babies in 1918.

Vimto (1908), Swedish Fish (1958), Jelly Babies (1918)

Back in Sweden, 1978 saw the launch of perhaps the most recognisable SAAB automobile, the SAAB 900. Spending 15 years in product, the 900 was an understated yet rather desirable car that showed Swedish engineering at its finest… and most quirky. One thing that drivers of the SAAB 900 would find interrupting their otherwise enjoyable journey were traffic lights, first introduced in London in December 1868. This gas-powered traffic light was short-lived however, as it exploded the following month. It took another half century or so for the idea to gain popularity… but my goodness, it did.

More entertaining than traffic lights, the LP record was launched by Columbia Records in 1948. Starting a familiar pattern of trying to squeeze more entertainment into a physical format, technologies such as the LaserDisc, CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays really just followed the LP’s lead.

SAAB 900 (1978), Traffic Light (1868), LP Record (1948)

1918 saw the creation of the electronic flip-flop, a bistable circuit that can be used to save a 0 or a 1, and is therefore an important step into creating modern computing.  Three-quarters of a century later this led to the not exactly awe-inspiring Atari Jaguar and Amstrad Mega PC consoles, plus the Apple MessagePad PDA. But apparently there was a lot of other stuff along the way too.

Flip-Flop (1918) plus Atari Jaguar, Amstrad Mega PC, Apple MessagePad (1993)

In the online world, the process of connecting computers together to share information was given a boost by the invention of the modem in 1958, allowing computers to communicate over plain old telephone lines. 30 years later this allowed many Internet-connected computer users to talk to each other using Internet Relay Chat, and 5 years after THAT - in 1993 -  these technologies had grown into the nascent World-Wide Web and the world’s first recognisable search engine was born… no, not Google but something called JumpStation.

Modem (not actually a 1958 model), Jumpstation (1993), Internet Relay Chat (1988)

What can we look forward to next year? We see the anniversaries of such diverse products as TiVO, the Intel 486, Sinclair ZX80, Lunar Lander and... err, the Toyota Crown S130. Not all breakthroughs are as obvious as you would think. In the meantime, enjoy a mince pie - first introduced into Europe in the 13th Century.

Image credits:
g4ll4is via Flickr
Rainer Zenz via Wikimedia Commons
Qirille via Wikimedia Commons
Wapster via Flickr
Swedennewyork via Flickr
Sam Greenhalgh via Flickr 
Huynh Phuc via Wikimedia Commons 
Raysonho via Wikimedia Commons
Sheila Scarborough via Flickr
Turbojet via Wikimedia Commons
Evan-Amos via Wikimdia Commons
Association WDA via Flickr
MKFI via Wikimedia Commons
Frederik Ramm: Recherchieren und Publizieren im World Wide Web
Darkbear via Wikimedia Commons

HP DeskJet (1988)

HP DeskJet 500 circa 1990

Introduced February 1988

Thirty years ago if you wanted to print something from a computer, your main choices were a high-quality but expensive and quite large laser printer, or a cheap but slow, clunky and incredibly noisy dot matrix printer. If these didn’t work for you and you still needed high-quality printing you might still have to resort to an old-fashioned daisy wheel printer instead.

But there was another option, and in February 1988 Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP DeskJet – a desktop printer with quality almost as good as a laser printer but for a fraction of the price. It wasn’t the first inkjet printer, and indeed HP themselves had been marketing the ThinkJet range for several years, but that was little more than a dot matrix printer with an inkjet head in it.

Like laser printers, but unlike most dot matrix printers and even the ThinkJet range, the DeskJet was built only to handle cut sheet paper. Compact enough and quiet enough to be sat on a desk next to a computer, the DeskJet was ideally suited to small offices or home environments. It was an immediate hit with customers.

Early DeskJets were not without their problems. A lot of office paper was designed for typing or photocopiers, and some coped poorly with the ink from inkjet printers. Complex graphics could be a problem on early units due to hardware and software limitations, and although rated at the same 300 dpi as HP’s laser printers, even in the best cases the quality did not stand up to a close comparison. The water-based ink tended to take a long time to drive and would run if the paper got wet. But at around a third of the cost of a LaserJet II, the DeskJet seemed a good value proposition.

But then (as know) one of the drawbacks of inkjet printing was the price of cartridges. Inkjet printing was much more expensive than laser printing, and those slow and noisy dot matrix printers cost next to nothing in ribbons. However, thirty years later these ink cartridges are still available with prices at around £30 to £50.

Subsequent generations of DeskJet added colour, network printing, full duplex capability and more. These days you can buy an HP DeskJet 2130 multifunction printer for around £40, although a replacement set of ink cartridges for than will cost more than £20. The lasting commercial success of the DeskJet range is remarkable and it certainly introduced a significant step forward in affordable printing for many people.

Image credit: Stahlkocher via Wikimedia Commons

Amstrad PPC 512 / PPC 640 (1988)

Amstrad PPC 512

Launched January 1988

In the late 1980s, British company Amstrad was enjoying huge success, first with a range of home computers, then some esoteric low-cost business computers, followed by a massively popular range of IBM-compatible PCs. Feeling confident from its growing sales, Amstrad decided to use its expertise to tackle a new market – portable computing.

In January 1988, a top-of-the-range portable computer such as the Compaq Portable III would have cost about $5000 or £2700 at the time (and about twice as much in modern money). Amstrad set off to create something that could do much of the same thing, but at a fraction of the cost.

Initially the Amstrad PPC 512 was shown at CES in Las Vegas in January 1988. Costing about a quarter of the price of the Compaq, the PPC 512 was indeed a computer that you could move about from place to place and it even had its own integrated LCD monitor. And it was about a million miles away from what we would consider to be a portable computer today.

The hardware was largely based on the existing PC1512 and PC1640 desktops,  but where they had a compact 85-key keyboard the PPC (portable PC) went for a full 102 keys which is essentially the same full-sized keyboard you’d see on a PC today (with a few extra buttons). Given that you couldn’t even fit a 102-key keyboard to the desktop PCs, it was an odd design decision.

Odder still was the tiny 9” LCD screen perched on the very left edge of the case, meaning that whoever was typing on the huge keyboard would always find it annoyingly offset. The display itself was pretty poor even by the crummy standard of late 1980s LCD screens, but you could hook an external CGA monitor up if you wanted.

The PPC 512 had 512KB of RAM, the PPC 640 had 640KB and a built-in modem in a darker case. Both machines were available in single or twin-floppy configurations, although frustratingly for Amstrad users these were superior 3.5” 720KB drives rather than the 5.25” 360KB drives on the desktop machines. Power could be provided by an external PSU, a whopping set of 10 C-cells (for one hour’s run-time) or from plugging it into an Amstrad proprietary monitor. Amstrad made a large carrying bag that it would all fit into.

An optional expansion box could provide a hard disk and expansion cards, but in those days most people could fit the operating system, application and data on a single floppy with some work. Hard disks were fearsomely expensive in those days as well, and 1980s-era hard disks were notoriously fragile and could suffer catastrophic failures if the heads were not parked prior to transport.

Sinclair PC200

Weighing 5.4Kg, the PPC was quite luggable and the built-in modem in the PPC 640 made it very appealing for certain types of customer. But overall the PPC range was not a success despite a creditable attempt to build something useful with the available technology at a price people could afford. An attempt to repackage the PPC as a home computer (the Amstrad PC20 and Sinclair PC200) again came up with an interesting but commercially unsuccessful design.

The PPC and its derivatives are rare and quite collectible today, with prices for complete systems running into several hundred pounds. Amstrad tried to break into the portable computing market a couple more times with the ALT in 1990 and ANB in 1991, but ultimately this was one market that they never managed to crack.

Image credits:
W3ird N3rd via Wikimedia Commons
Marcin Wichary / Ubclue via Wikimedia Commons
ITU Pictures via Flickr