DAK and the Golden Age of Gadget Catalogs
cabel.com
cabel.com
The funny thing is -- and I don't see it mentioned anywhere -- the hyperbole felt like something bordering on a scam as I grew older. I think it's one of those things where, as you grow up, you realize the way you read it literally as a naive kid is not the same way you read it as an adult, so you feel this strange disconnect between the promise being sold and what the product actually does.
Of course, I was never able to actually buy anything from DAK, but his writing truly drove my interest in technology.
This is something that makes be a bit sad in that now that I have money to buy whatever, there isn't anything "new" category wise (just upgrades on existing tech) that are worth buying. I miss dreaming about gadgets. I think the closest modern gadget that opens up a new category to play in is things like 3D printers and laser cutters/etchers.
Foreign house equipment are tend to be incompatible and local brands are strong, so sometimes weird one is found like this https://www.g-mark.org/en/gallery/winners/18335
I think with the benefit of hindsight we can recognize techno hype as a kind of creative writing genre in itself. People got pleasure from reading it even if they never bought any of the products. And part of the joy of all but the most utilitarian product is always the fiction around it. People sell pans with dreams of Tuscany. Maybe it's good sometimes to hang on to the suspension of disbelief and enjoy the show. You know if you're going to the Barnum circus you're going to get scammed, but you're getting the privilege of being scammed by the greatest show on earth.
https://www.edmundoptics.com/ViewDocument/Graphical%20Ray%20...
The back room sold surplus scientific gadgets and parts, as well as military surplus (some WW2)… none of the back room stuff was in the catalog, so it was extra special to visit their store. You never knew what you’d find, like a WW2-era military oscilloscope for sale. Or surplus giant glass lenses to try to make your own telescope. Or black lights. Or gas masks, giant capacitors, random IC chips or transistors, unknown electronic devices in random boxes or wooden shelves that looked like your dad built them for the garage.
The front room was enormous and displayed everything in the catalog and possibly more. Everything could be touched and manipulated. Expensive items were in glass cases but clerks were happy to let you check them out.
The retail store is gone even though the successor company occupies the same building last I checked.
Any science-minded kid who grew up in South Jersey in the 60s, 70s, or 80s laments their closure, I guarantee that.
I would occasionally schlepp to an electronics surplus store in the San Fernando Valley to look around. Even when I didn't have a project in mind I would usually come up with something based on what I saw that day and would leave with the needed stuff. I checked their website just now and saw that they had closed permanently a few weeks ago after 50+ years.
They should bring back SkyMall as it really is just the sort of distraction you need on a typical flight.
Smartphones have taken over much of classic gadget functionality, and perhaps dimmed its magic. But I cannot help but be charmed by "Enter the Incredible New World of CD ROM" cover!! Techno-utopia is just a page turn (or product order) away!
Excuse me while I try to download and install Encarta 2009.
Almost all gadget functionally, really. I was looking through a mid-1980's Radio Shack catalog. Just about everything in there can now be done by a phone instead. It is crazy and awesome when you think about it.
Camcorders, tape recorders, stereo systems, shortwave radios (now Internet streaming), TVs, VCRs, electronic weather gauges (just look up the current humidity now), computers, etc.
http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-screen-printer/
Weird. 4 inches wide. Printed the contents of the screen and nothing else. Connected directly to the bus by an edge connector (no card or serial or parallel connection).
Lots of cool things, stereo and computers, but you’d not know what. Like Radio Shack and Trader Joe’s had a baby.
One of my favorite purchases was a huge 18” subwoofer cabinet with its own amp and… centimeter thick copper/gold tipped speaker cables! (Way before audiophile nonsense, they were cheap!)
Thing pounded the house down in the days of music from the TR-808. A dozen or so years later got tired of moving it and put it on Craigslist, only one pair with a truck showed up and I was highly motivated to give it away for free. “Can always use for firewood if you don’t like it, “ I said.
Just realized I still have the cables, forgot where they came from until now. :-D
The Sharper Image on the other hand, woo! Cool things, expensive things. Really enjoyed those.
J. Peterman is notorious for its purple prose, it's kind of the opposite of DAK. Expensive stuff, trying to exude a sense of exclusivity. On the other hand it does have the same approach of a supposedly dedicated proprietor curating a particular kind of product for their customers.
I would really love to get a hold of some of the Calumet Photo catalogs from the early 90s. The zenith of analog cameras and processes all bound up in a super slick collection.
Bought a few things from him, like a cordless stereo headset. For that one I had to string an (included) thin insulated wire around my room - like an invisible fence! But it sounded good to me, and was inexpensive enough for a kid like me its day.
But my favorite sales pitch from DAK was for the Gorilla Banana printer, a super-cheap dot matrix parallel printer with a stupid name that made it ever more sellable - at least by Drew! Unfortunately I had no computer to buy it for...but I eventually found a couple of them in use in my business department's computer lab!
But, yes, they never adjusted their offerings or their marketing to make them more broadly appealing.
Would be cool if these were all scanned and online somewhere.
I remember buying a handheld electronic chess game in the mid 1980s from one of those catalogs -- I can't remember if it was DAK or JS&A though.