Entertainment Technology

Gaming technology in the 70’s

         The 70’s was a decade of gaming revolution. The “Computer Space” game was the first game that could be played by putting coins into it (arcade game).“Pong” was the first mass-produced arcade game and the “Odyssey” by Magnavox was the first home console videogame system. The Computer Space game was created by Nolan Bushnell in 1971, and is considered the very first commercial arcade game. Bushnell based this arcade game off of another game called SpaceWar. He had high hopes, but the Galaxy Game did not meet its mark and turned out to be a failed attempt. Bushnell did not see this as the end however, and in 1972 he continued on and created a gaming company by the name of, Atari. That same year Magnavox came out with a gaming unit that was called the Odyssey. The Odyssey was built without a microprocessor and mainly consisted of a board with about four-dozen transistors and diodes that ran the console. It was a very simple and limited console, but turned out to be a success with total sales reaching around 100,000. The next year Atari came out with a game called “Pong”. Pong was highly favored and was a huge hit in most pinball arcades and bars. Although pong was a game of simplicity and not much quality skill, it was highly addicting and surely proved to be the most popular video game of this time. In 1975, Atari took another big step forward and created a home version of Pong. This was a great idea and turned out to be the breakthrough the gaming world was searching for. Pong opened the door for home gaming by showing what huge opportunities there were in this field, and how just a simple game could create so much talk. So with that in mind, Atari decided to take it up a notch and create the 2600 VCS gaming system. The 2600 used removable cartridges, so multiple games could be played at once while using the same hardware. Not only was the 2600 versatile but it was also very complex. It contained a MOS microprocessor, a custom graphics chip, 128 bytes of RAM, and 4kb ROM-based cartridges. The 2600 turned out to be incredibly successful and sold around 6 million consoles by 1980. The 70’s were huge to the gaming world and proved to be the take off point for arcade games and home videogame systems. 

Electronics Technology

Electronics Technology in the 70’s

              The 70’s experienced an incredible advancement in electronic technology. But, there was one invention that topped all others in this decade. The Intel 4004 was publicly introduced in November of 1971 as the worlds first single chip microprocessor. This was truly a remarkable invention that was engineered by Intel’s Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stanley Mazor. Years earlier there was talk of having a computer on a chip, but to many it was just a fantasy and did not really seem realistic at that point in time. However, not all were skeptics, Ted Hoff of Intel was sure he could create an invention that would revolutionize the industry of technology forever. Hoff was the first person to see the new silicon-gated MOS technology as a great opportunity in electronic advancement. After much research, software design, and work, Hoff and the Intel team created a chip that for the first time ever had a full central processing unit (CPU) built into it. But, that is not all it had, it contained a command register, decoder, decoding control, control monitoring of machine commands and interim register. This was incredible because this little chip was only an 1/8^th of an inch wide and 1/6^th of an inch long. The 4004 contained 2,300 metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors and contained as much power as the ENIAC (Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator), which covered an area of 1,800 square feet, weighed 30 tons, and consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical power. This chip was turning out to be quite an amazing invention and was in a complete league of its own.

Busicom, a Japanese calculator manufacturer, was actually the first client of the 4004 and had asked Intel to design and manufacture 12 separate chips that could perform the duties for keyboard scanning, display control, printer control, and some other functions for their calculator. Intel later came back with the idea of the 4004 microprocessor chip, which had all 12 separate chips in 1 single chip. It was incredibly fast and could even store up to 4KB of memory. This chip truly was a great breakthrough for electronic technology, also for the computer industry as well. The Microprocessor is actually the reason we are able to have home computers and laptops. Even today the microprocessor is based on the designs of the original 4004 and is the most complex mass-produced product ever. 

Medical Technology

Medical Advances in Technology in the 70’s

          One incredible invention in the field of science and medicine during the 70’s was the magnetic resonance imaging scanner (also known as the MRI). The MRI gave doctors and “inside look” without even having to perform surgery, harmful dyes, or x-rays. It was truly a wonderful invention that helped doctors and even patients get the results in a more safe and evidentially clear way. MRI is based on a discovery made by Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell, called nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). NMR is concept of magnetic fields and radio waves causing atoms to give off tiny radio signals. This phenomenon became the first dimension of spatial orientation and the foundation of the MRI. In 1970, a medical doctor and research scientist by the name of Raymond Damadian discovered the basis for using NMR as a tool for medical diagnosis. In his discoveries he found that cancerous tissue emits response signals that last much longer than non cancerous tissues. With this idea in mind he continued on the path of wanting to create this “tool” that could read the body by magnetic and radio waves.

In 1974, Dr. Damadian took his idea to the U.S patent Office with the name of, “Apparatus and Method for Detecting Cancer in Tissue.” He was granted a patent and it became the worlds first patent of the MRI. After working on the scanner for 3 years Damadian finally had a complete product, which he dubbed the “Indomitable.” As one can see Dr. Damadian was very confident in his invention, and rightfully so as it was a huge step for the world of science and medicine. One was now able to see clearly the whole human anatomy of a person. However, July 3, 1977 proved to be the real test day on whether it would work and work right. Dr. Damadian would be the first to get into the machine and try it out, since there were no other volunteers. After getting in he realized something terrible, it would not work. One of Damadians colleagues suggested though that he might be too big for the scanner. So, instead a svelte graduate student agreed to try it. This day would go down in history as the first day the “Indomitable” MRI scanner successfully worked. The process took almost five hours only to produce one image, but it was truly a great time for medicine technology. The MRI has been widely successful since then; a report says that by 2002 around 60 million MRI scans have been completed. 

Travel Technology

Travel Technology in the 70’s       

           With the jumbo jet engine created just decades before, America would introduce something that would revolutionize air travel forever. This was the jumbo jet 747, it was designed and manufactured by Boeing and entered service on January 1, 1970. In the 60’s there was an incredible increase in air travel that led companies to the idea of some sort of “super craft” that could fly longer and travel farther. Boeing was the first to put this idea on paper and take this huge challenge of creating the first jumbo jet. This reason this became such a major challenge was because those working on the aircraft were given 4 years to develop, build, and test the aircraft. Reason being, is Boeing had promised Pan Am that it would be completed in 1970. Pan Am was actually very big in the 747’s success, as it had ordered 25 of the 100 original series, and because of the lack of orders Boeing might not have been able to complete the 747 without Pan Am. The workers at Boeing truly had overcome all the doubt and adversity and completed the task right on time. They were even named “The Incredibles”, because of the immense amount of work they did in such a short amount of time.

This aircraft was incredibly intricate and complex, but also very safe and comfortable. Pratt and Whitney (Engineers) developed a massive high-bypass turbofan engine that contained four backup hydraulic systems, split control surfaces, multiple structural redundancy, and sophisticated flaps for the runways. This aircraft was not only huge in size, holding about 400 passengers, but also one of the safest aircrafts made. However, the 747 was not created just to be a passenger aircraft, but also a freight cargo aircraft. Boeings first idea was to make the 747 into a cargo plane for military use. But, realized that the 747 could be used to revolutionize transportation. And revolutionize it did. The Boeing could travel much longer and fly at speeds of over 500 mph; it was an incredible invention and remained the largest aircraft for 35 years.  Boeing had risked it all on this idea of the 747 and the building of the Everett factory, all they had was put into this project and they nearly went bankrupt for this aircraft. But, in the end their hopes were met and the 747 became the worlds largest passenger aircraft in the world. 

Space Technology

Space Technology in the 70’s

One big technological advance in space exploration was the Viking Mission to Mars by NASA. This mission was mostly created to obtain high-resolution images of the surface, structure, composition, atmosphere, and evidence of life on the planet of mars. The Viking Mission to Mars was carried out by two spacecrafts Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each of these spacecrafts carried an orbiter and a lander. The mission began when Viking 1 was launched off on August 20, 1975. Viking 1 arrived at Mars on June 19, 1976, its first job was to orbit the planet of mars for about a month, taking pictures of the surface while also finding appropriate landing sites for the Viking landers. On July 20, 1976 the first Viking lander touched down on the surface of Mars at an area called Chryse Planitia. The second Viking spacecraft launched on September 9, 1975 and reached the orbit of Mars on August 7, 1976. On September 3, 1976 the second Viking lander touched down on mars at an area called Utopia Planitia. Both landers took surface samples and analyzed them for composition and signs of life. Also, the landers studied atmospheric meteorology, deployed seismometers, and took over 1,400 images on both sights. While the landers were working on the surface the Orbiters were busy imaging the whole surface of mars at a resolution of 150 to 300 meters with a total of around 50,000 images.

The Viking Mission to Mars proved to be very successful it gave us a complete overview of what mars was truly like and also provided us with the mysterious question of, is there really life on mars? The final answer to that question was, no. But, this mission did show us the incredible complexity and structure of the planet mars, which ranges from big volcanoes to giant canyons. One can even see the photos today, they are easily viewable online. The Viking Orbiters were powered down by August 17, 1980 after making a total of 2106 orbits around mars combined. The landers stopped communication by November 13, 1982 after a successful 6 years on Mars. This event was very exciting in the 70’s considering the U.S. had just completed their first space exploration adventure the decade before. However, the project did turn out to be very pricey, and the estimated cost was around one billion dollars for the Mission to Mars of Viking 1 and 2 spacecrafts.