Technology

In the 1970s, Americans adopted a hedonistic lifestyle. The technology that helped power the attitude they had has matured into the cool technology we have today, the one most of us take for granted.
Ping Pong
Every year hundreds of millions dedicated gamers spend billions of dollars (all together) on what has become a national obsession, video games.
The monster success of this multibillion dollar industry can trace its origin to a simple blip of an icon that's completely 70s, pong.
Before the video game "pong" there was a video game called ping pong. In 1966 Ralph Baer, the brainchild television engineer, came up with the idea of a device that would allow people to play games using their television sets. Two years after, Baer and several associates completed the construction of a prototype. They called it the "the brown box." It stored 128 kilobytes of memory, equivalent to one page Microsoft word document. It was enough brain power to generate simple shapes. In, 1968, using these simple shapes, Baer's team came up with an idea that helped create entertainment renaissance. A series of circuits controlled ping pongs game play, when the ball appeared to come in contact with a paddle, an electronic signal was sent to a logic circuit that triggered an output signal so called flip-flop switch. The signal caused the flip flop to alter its state and change the direction of the ball. This occurred every time the ball touched a paddle or a wall. In the beginning, the game lacked some fundamental elements. For example, it did not have sound or a score counter. In 1970, Baer licensed his brown box to TV manufacturer Magnavox.

It evolved into "pong." A young engineer named Nolan Bushnell designed one of the first arcade games. Bushnell recognized the potential of "ping pong" and went on to create an arcade version of it called "pong" with his new company called Atari.

Polaroid

In the early 1970s, most photographers had to send the film they shot, away for processing. In 1972, the polaroid corporation released the sx-70, it would take out the picture you took and you would be able to see it in a matter of seconds.

Americans would spend so much money on film and they would hardly spend money on what they actually needed like soap and shampoo.  

The sx-70 was sold for over $200.00 which is around $900.00 today.

How did it work?

As the film would exit the sx-70, it would pass through two rollers that burst a pod of chemicals spreading them across the negative while the image was developing a so-called opacifier, a highly colorized dye mixed in the chemical pod shields the negative, acting like a liquid darkroom door. The opacifier absorbs all ambient light. After sixty seconds the picture is processed and the pacifying dye becomes colorless gradually revealing the image as if it is magically appearing before your eyes.

Trans Am 455

Trans Am 455 super duty, 1973. The most powerful muscle car of the decade, muscle car and more. These were THE muscle cars, nothing could have topped them. It had a Firebird emblem on the hood which was and eye-catcher, what was under the hood of the Super Duty blew away competition. It would go from 0 to 100 in just 10 seconds. In 1975, their horsepower dropped to 200. In 1977, the car dame out in a movie called "Smokey the Bandit" and their production doubled, the public was enamored with the car, everyone wanted it. Sales went through the roof.

In 1977 & 1978 Pontiac sold over a hundred and fifty thousand Trans Ams. The Trans Am model was sold up until 2002. It is a collectors item today and it is worth $40,000.

Today
Technology is only going to keep getting better. Styles are going to be changing and things will be more advanced. Children, teenagers, adults, everyone uses technology. Now, technology is doing both good and bad things. Laptops are more advanced and help kids in school, with their homework, and much more. It also helps teachers, it makes it easier to teach, books are not needed all the time, you can make PowerPoints and you don't need to be writing things down on a board. All of this can be bad because it makes us lazier. We don't use our brains as much as before. Now we have a really smart phone that can give us directions, or it includes a calculator so whenever you come across numbers you can use that instead of having to think a little. It can come in pretty handy of course and if you are lazy (like me) it may seem like the best thing ever created. But all this social media and all these new games take time away from us. A lot of people don't spend time with their family because they'd rather be on their phones listening to music or watching videos about a bunch of random stuff.
Things are getter smaller, thinner, and smarter. Nearly everything now is touch screen. Whether we like it or not, we need technology around. It helps us so much and it is an amazing thing. We need it more than we know. Although it does has its ups and downs, it definitely makes things a lot easier. Things would be different without but I think it'd be better to keep things the way they are now.

1940-1969

M.E 262
During World War II, Nazi Germany was the most technologically advanced country. The United States on the other hand was not really advanced in technology. One thing they did know how to do was how to mass produce anything during war time. The least advanced country in the fight was Russia. Technology peaked new inventions during World War II. While the United States was in an arms race against Russia, new inventions peaked as well as nuclear weaponry was becoming popularized. During the war, everyone's mind is set on having the best technology because they believe it is a definite possibility that their enemy will, and can be, destroyed.
It is a little frightening to imagine that the Nazis were so advanced they had some of the technology we have today.
For example, Nazis invented a new jet airplane called the Messerschmitt ME 262. The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the world’s first fully operational turbojet fighter and saw service in the later years of World War II. The Messerschmitt Me 262 had to potential to change the course of the air war in Europe but Hitler ordered that it be used in a capacity that undermined its whole value as a fighter plane. This jet was believed to be the jet aircraft that would dominate to retain Germany superiority from the United States and maybe even lead in the Cross Atlantic Raid Hitler vision after he would annihilate Britain. The Messerschmitt was one of the many projects where Nazis tried to produce an efficient jet aircraft. After the Allied Powers bombarded Berlin, the ME 262 production was laid back for about six months, towards the end of the war.

Tiger Tank

The German Tiger Tank and the Panzerkampfwagen VIII Maus ("Mouse") tank are two, out of many, of the other technological advances created during World War II. These were German Tanks, from Hitler's imagination, put into reality.

Of course Hitler wanted bigger tanks, heavier armored, and much-much bigger guns attached. Germany wanted to match the United States because the United States M6 gave Germany some complications, that is the reason why the "mouse" tank was invented. However, the "mouse" tank was declared inefficient due to its lack of ability to go through water because of the electrical diesel powered engine.

The Tiger Tanks were Germany highly produced tanks. These tanks were effective and used throughout the entire World War.

The Tiger Tank weighed about 57 tons (114,000 pounds) which is about one third of the Mouse Tank which weighs about 180 tons (360,000 pounds). Everyone believed the United States highly produced and manufactured tank was the Sherman tanks or the M4, which faced off with the Tiger Tanks.

Television
Shades of black and white were the only thing you were able to see on television. On June 25th 1951 the very first color commercial was shown on television on CBS, Colombia Broadcasting System. For us, now, it is very normal to see color on TV but imagine the look on peoples faces when they witnessed the first color commercial.
NBC was the first broadcasting company to air their logo in color.
A lot of people were not able to see the first time color TV aired because not everyone owned a colored set. There were only a few sales of color television.
By the end of 1957, only 150,000 colored sets were sold. Why? When colored sets were first marketed, in March 1954, the cost for them was $1,295, that was way too expensive for an average family to afford. At first most viewers did not like colored television, it felt too real to them.
In 1954 only 80,050 producing sets, produced in color. That was not was not enough for the entire nation and NBC was the only broadcasting company to air all its shows in color.

Bonanza

In 1959, Bonanza was the first show to be filmed and aired in color, its popularity grew over the years and because of this, more audiences sought out to watch the show on a colored set.

Inside a television set there is a device called a cathode ray tube which creates beams of electrons in three different colors, red, blue, and green. Using only those colors, but in different combinations and amounts, any color can be made. The back of a television screen is covered in dots of phosphor, when struck by the colored electron beams, the phosphor gives off light on the television screen. The human brain forms these dots into a whole picture.

Because of the introduction of colored TV CBS and NBC continued to be rivals to this day. In addition, small affiliates of large networks like NBC began broadcasting in color. Colored TV also encouraged companies to compete for better resolution and screen brightness because of this competition, consumers had a wide range of choices, this in turn made the price of color television decrease, by 1964, color television cost only $495.