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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

As I got towards the end of the article, I was thinking of The Sharper Image--and there it was. DAK tickles something somewhere in my brain somewhere so I'm sure I saw it. There was a certain sub-genre in the days of print catalogs; SkyMall/Brookstone/Hammacher Schlemmer that were at least adjacent to this space which were probably more distinguished by their pitches than the actual products.

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Clever product catalogs are their own delightful form of surreal-yet-real commercial art/literature.

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.

I used to have pretty much a whole bookshelf shelf at home of catalogs that arrived by the pound around Christmas. Even if my buying was usually with the boring clothing regulars pre-Web, it was entertainment. I buy less stuff generally, can better just search for stuff, and, as you say, smartphones have cut into the market for various single-purpose electronics.

> Smartphones have taken over much of classic gadget functionality, and perhaps dimmed its magic.

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.

I learned a lot of electronics through their kits. Spring clips eliminated soldering, all the components were on the board and clearly labelled. The instruction manual's explanations were seriously written and at a pretty high level. It wasn't until late high school/early college that I had the background to understand them. In the meantime, I had a lot of fun with the suggested projects.

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