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irseg · 10-06-2003, 01:54 AM

1. Those cool touch screens showing up in high end cars nowadays were first available on the 1986 Buick Riviera/Olds Toronado. Standard on the Riv (green monochrome), optional on the Olds which had an improved color version. It had all kinds of cool features including the ability to diagnose every button on the dashboard and set a trouble code if any of them started acting up.

2. On that Toronado, if you shut off the automatic headlights, it's dark out, it's in gear, and moving over 5 mph, it dings 3 times and a "HEADLIGHT USE SUGGESTED" message pops up on the CRT screen. I think that's pretty cool.

3. If you have a Motorola/General Instruments digital cable box, you can access a diagnostic menu to view information about signal quality and some other neat things by turning it off and immediately hitting the "OK" button from the remote.

4. ABS brakes and flush headlights were first available on an American car in 1984, on the Lincoln Mark VII.

5. Back in the early 80s there was a video disc system that used microgrooves (kind of a suped-up LP), called Selectavision. It was superior to VHS, as was Betamax. But VHS won because it was recordable unlike Selectavision, and had a far longer playing time than Beta.

6. Super glue was originally developed to replace stitches when a wound had to be fixed up during a battle and in similar bad situations. That'd explain why it never holds anything together except for skin.

7. Some record players in the 1940s used a beam of light (the system was aptly named "Beam of Light") and a photocell as an optical pickup. The advantages were reduced tracking force, superior frequency response, and no electrical noise. It was a pretty high-tech setup--kind of the grandfather of the CD player. Not bad for a time when transistors were still in experimental stages and computers were virtually unheard-of! It worked well, but not so well that it offset the cost.

That's just a start, I've got plenty more where that came from. I'm a treasure trove of useless information. Innovative stuff that was ahead of its time is a big interest of mine, if you can't tell.

10-06-2003, 01:54 AM	#5 (permalink)
irseg Junkie Location: Florida	1. Those cool touch screens showing up in high end cars nowadays were first available on the 1986 Buick Riviera/Olds Toronado. Standard on the Riv (green monochrome), optional on the Olds which had an improved color version. It had all kinds of cool features including the ability to diagnose every button on the dashboard and set a trouble code if any of them started acting up. 2. On that Toronado, if you shut off the automatic headlights, it's dark out, it's in gear, and moving over 5 mph, it dings 3 times and a "HEADLIGHT USE SUGGESTED" message pops up on the CRT screen. I think that's pretty cool. 3. If you have a Motorola/General Instruments digital cable box, you can access a diagnostic menu to view information about signal quality and some other neat things by turning it off and immediately hitting the "OK" button from the remote. 4. ABS brakes and flush headlights were first available on an American car in 1984, on the Lincoln Mark VII. 5. Back in the early 80s there was a video disc system that used microgrooves (kind of a suped-up LP), called Selectavision. It was superior to VHS, as was Betamax. But VHS won because it was recordable unlike Selectavision, and had a far longer playing time than Beta. 6. Super glue was originally developed to replace stitches when a wound had to be fixed up during a battle and in similar bad situations. That'd explain why it never holds anything together except for skin. 7. Some record players in the 1940s used a beam of light (the system was aptly named "Beam of Light") and a photocell as an optical pickup. The advantages were reduced tracking force, superior frequency response, and no electrical noise. It was a pretty high-tech setup--kind of the grandfather of the CD player. Not bad for a time when transistors were still in experimental stages and computers were virtually unheard-of! It worked well, but not so well that it offset the cost. That's just a start, I've got plenty more where that came from. I'm a treasure trove of useless information. Innovative stuff that was ahead of its time is a big interest of mine, if you can't tell. Last edited by irseg; 10-06-2003 at 01:58 AM..