Comment by Sharlin
7 months ago
Additional 1991 gadgets you now have in your phone:
- Color TV (screen's a bit tight though)
- VCR
- Pager
- GPS (very recent and expensive in 1991)
- In-car navigation (just barely available in 1991)
- Portable cassette player
- Portable video game console (GameBoy launched in 1989)
- Modem and sound card for the Tandy
- SGI workstation for rendering 3D graphics
Phones in Japan used to receive actual TV. Well, slightly different, but still directly from the waves rather than the internet. Phones used to receive AM and FM, too.
Some still can! Usually more low-mid teir devices.
Some of the higher end ones (such as my phone, which is how I know this) have the AM/FM signal processor built into their SoC, but the pins aren't wired to an antena.
In the US we also briefly got this really cursed thing: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaFLO
Not forgetting the humble home phone, and car phone.
In some ways one could also include a Game Boy in that list!
I did :) I think you caught me between edits.
More than just some: an iPhone is my preferred device for playing games for Nintento portables. Literally gameboy games.
Let’s have some fun with this:
Newspaper
Classifieds
Phone book
Rolodex
Photo album
ATM?
Health tracker?
Translator
Dictionary
Thesaurus
Notebook
Scanner
Compass
Flashlight
Sears catalog?
Stills camera! Somehow that wasn't yet mentioned.
Calendar
Egg timer
Stopwatch
Wrist watch
Calendar
Encyclopedia
Star map and ephemeris
TV/stereo etc remote control
Heating/AC etc remote control
Credit+debit card
Language learning cassettes
Books
Paper maps (in general, not just for car navi)
Keys and key cards
Bird, plant, insect, mushroom etc guide
Level and tape measure (kind of)
You're racing ahead. I'm still trying to find the slot where we are supposed to be putting those cassettes in to play them. (-:
Meh, I'd rather had been born to same parents but as a USA boomer baby.