These days, you can buy a state-of-the-art widescreen HD TV for a few thousand dollars – but 75 years ago you could get the latest technology in a television for just under £100. This behemoth of a television is the oldest working TV set in Britain, and when it was first purchased in 1936 it was impressively high-tech. Today it retains 70 percent of its original components and still works just like it did all those years ago.

The Marconi Type-702 set boasts a 12-inch screen in a massive mahogany and walnut case. The screen itself is actually situated toward the ceiling, but a pop-up mirror lets viewers watch the show from across the room. At the time the set was purchased, only one channel was being broadcast, and for only around two hours each day.

Amazingly, the television has only had two owners in its 75-year history. Just a few days after the original owner purchased it for £99, 15 shillings, the transmitter tower near his home burned down and his area was unable to receive TV broadcasts again for another decade. Today, the set is up for auction and is expected to bring in over £5000.

The post Senior Receiver: Oldest Working Television Set in Britain first appeared on Gajitz.

The incomparable cartoonist Tex Avery had a knack for making totally goofy predictions about future technology. His series of “… of Tomorrow” cartoons took some animated guesses at what life would be like in the future. The two below were produced in the early 1950s for MGM. They’re full of goofiness, fun futurism…and a bit of old-fashioned sexism.

These tongue-in-cheek predictions were never meant to be serious forecasts of actual cars that would one day rule the road – but at least one of them (accidentally) came close to the truth. The foot-propelled car isn’t far off from energy-saving people-powered vehicles being designed today in the interest of minimizing fossil fuel consumption.

The “TV of Tomorrow” short, however, came a little closer to predicting the actual state of present-day television. There’s no more need for antennae or exhaustive tuning, and it seems that every channel plays the same show or two at all times. You can view “peep shows” from home and even place bets on the outcome of certain shows. DVRs can help you skip right through commercials, and even the TV-based fishing game has been made into reality more than once. The future is an awesome place to live.

The post Tomorrow Comes Today: Goofy Predictions of Modern Tech first appeared on Gajitz.