It’s funny how you think you know what a word means until someone asks you for a definition, at which point you run into problems trying to articulate that word’s meaning. Take the word “retro,” for example. What does this mean to you?
Take a few minutes to jot your thoughts down, and then we’ll continue. There’s no rush. I’m happy to wait. What? You’ve finished? That was fast!
In fact, the term “retro”—as it’s commonly used today to refer to styles, fashions, or objects from the past—originated in the 1960s. “Retro” comes from the Latin prefix retro-, meaning “backward” or “in past times.” Our modern usage began as a shortened form of the French term rétrospectif, which referred to art or fashion that deliberately looked back at an earlier period.
In English, the term “retro” began appearing in print around the late 1960s to early 1970s, primarily in the fields of fashion and design. By the 1980s, it had become more widely adopted in popular culture to describe revivals of earlier trends, such as 1950s rockabilly or mid-century modern furniture. The use of “retro” to refer to old technology began to gain traction in the 1990s, becoming more widespread in the 2000s, particularly with the rise of nostalgia for early computing and video games.
Today, the phrase “retro tech” is a familiar term that refers to older or vintage technologies that have experienced a resurgence in popularity. This can cover anything from flip phones to cassette players to older gaming consoles
For my part, “retro” implies affection, collectability, and aesthetic value, and it sounds much nicer than saying “old and outdated,” which is how people often describe me.
Just writing about this reminded me of my never-ending Prognostication Engine project. This is constructed in a 1929 wooden radio cabinet featuring hand-carved trim and rosettes, complemented by a copper-and-brass fire extinguisher (circa the 1930s) on one side. Why the fire extinguisher? Well, the chamber glowing red on the right of the upper panel acts as a (virtual) furnace powering the beast.
You don’t see Prognostication Engines like this very often (Source: Clive “Max” Maxfield)
The water-cut brass panels on the front are festooned with antique switches and analog meters, while the brass panel on the top is, itself, topped with an assortment of large vacuum tubes. The whole contraption is enhanced with more tricolor light-emitting diodes (LEDs) than I care to count. To provide a sense of scale, this beast is approximately 6 feet tall.
On the one hand, everything about the Prognostication Engine qualifies as “retro.” On the other hand, I’ve always thought of it as being “steampunk,” a subgenre of retro-futurism that combines Victorian-era aesthetics with speculative technology, as if modern technology had evolved through steam power, clockwork, and brass. Common steampunk traits include brass, leather, copper, visible gears, tubes, glowing energy cores, and fantastical functions.
Now that I’ve thought about this, if anyone questions me in the future, I’m going to say, “My retro-styled neo-Victorian retro-futuristic Prognostication Engine sits right at the beautifully hand-carved intersection of retro and steampunk.” Let’s see if they can argue their way out of that!
Actually, none of the above was what I wanted to talk about, but it certainly serves to set the scene, so that’s all right. As I mentioned in a previous column (see Eeek Alors! AI-Powered PCB Layout Is Here and It’s Awesome), Jinger Zeng, who is the Community Manager at Hackster.io, recently asked me to contribute regular Throwback Thursdays columns waffling on about the technologies of yesteryear.
As you might imagine, this was like offering catnip to a cat. If there’s one thing I like, it’s bacon sandwiches, but that’s not relevant here. If there’s another thing I like, it’s waffling on about times gone by (“When I was a lad…”).
Amazingly enough, I’ve already posted the first four columns in this series. By golly, Thursdays certainly pass by quickly these days—they should wait for the rest of the week to catch up.
My first column was titled Bodacious Wooden Breadboards. As part of this, I included a picture of the cover of the 1979 Ladybird book, Learnabout… Simple Electronics. As depicted on the cover, this tome features the use of wooden breadboards.
My second column, Springing into Action with Spring Connectors, explored some of the different ways the creators of early electronic kits conceived to connect their component leads and wires.
For example, the American inventor, athlete, magician, toy maker, and businessman Alfred Carlton Gilbert (1884–1961) devised an ingenious solution that utilized a pegboard, components mounted on small Bakelite bases, and Jiffy Connectors.
As an aside, Alfred was a bit of a character. He financed his education by working as a magician, earned his degree in medicine, and tied for gold in pole vaulting at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London. He went on to have a fruitful career as an inventor and toy maker (I daren’t even think what he got up to in his spare time).
However, the real thrust of my second column was the spring connectors that epitomized the electronics kits prevalent when I was growing up, such as the 130-in-1 kit made by Maxitronix (no relation).
As its name suggests, in my third column, Vunderful Vacuum Tubes, I turned my attention to the vacuum tube technology that was still the mainstay of electronics when I was a kid. To this day, I remain incredibly impressed by the ingenuity of scientists and engineers in the first half of the 20th Century with respect to their vacuum tube-based creations.
In addition to folks refurbishing old equipment, vacuum tubes continue to find favor in certain audio, radio, industrial, and military applications. In my case, I repurpose defunct tubes for my retro-styled neo-Victorian retro-futuristic artifacts (can you see how that just rolls off the tongue?).
Preparing to create a vacuum tube-inspired artifact (Source: Clive “Max” Maxfield)
My current column, at the time of this writing, is Not-so BASIC, which reminds us that it’s not so long ago that sophisticated programming languages like C, C++, and Python were simply not available to us.
When I began university in 1975, my first code was written on teletype machines and punched onto cards in FORTRAN. These programs ran on a massive time-sharing mainframe computer. The first microcomputer systems available to the unwashed masses (I’ve cleaned up a bit since then) in the late 1970s and early 1980s supported BASIC. Many of today’s older computer scientists and engineers “cut their programming teeth” on these machines. In fact, access to these home computers led many youngsters to pursue careers as computer scientists and engineers in the first place.
I couldn’t help myself. In the aforementioned column, I had to make mention of the fact that Retro Games released a modern version of the Commodore 64, called THEC64, in 2019.
THEC64 (Source: Clive “Max” Maxfield)
I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s well worth talking about again. This is a full-size replica of the original Commodore 64 (also known as the C64). Unlike the C64, which was based on MOS Technology’s 6510 microprocessor (a modified version of the famous 6502), THEC64 employs an FPGA programmed to emulate the 6510.
You can use THEC64 to write your own programs in BASIC. Additionally, it comes pre-loaded with 64 classic (dare I say “retro”) games, such as California Games, Paradroid, and Boulder Dash. The great thing is that it also utilizes modern technology, such as an HDMI output that can drive a TV or computer screen.
My next Throwback Thursdays column, which will appear on the Hackster.io website on Thursday, July 3rd, will be about my first soldering iron. This was a traditional copper bit device, which I heated over a ring on my mum’s gas cooking stove in our kitchen. I then risked life and limb racing upstairs to my bedroom to solder as many joints as I could before my iron grew too cold to continue. All I can say is that soldering was a much more physical exercise back in those days of yore.
In closing, I would like to ask for your help. I have some ideas of my own, but it won’t be long before I’ll be looking for topics to talk about in future Throwback Thursdays columns. So, I welcome any suggestions pertaining to retro gadgets, gizmos, tools, and technologies. Over to you—any ideas?
