Gallery: The Amazing and Ridiculous Tech From a 30-Year-Old Sears Catalog
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Sears should have morphed into Amazon. In the 1980s, ordering from the Sears catalog was as common as getting your socks and books from Amazon today. The catalog was filled with the latest fashions, tools from Sears' Craftsman line, and even go-carts. Always on the pulse of the nation, the catalog also included an electronics section that served audiophiles, home theater geeks, and the occasional budding programmer. Here are some of the gems from the electronics and other sections that could have been yours from the Fall/Winter 1983 catalog:
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Timex Sinclair 1000 Computer: $49 --------------------------------- __Catalog Description:__ > 2K memory expands to a powerful 16K. Most of the 40 keys are programmed for up to five commands. "One Touch" keyword entry system eliminates a great deal of typing keywords (RUN, LIST, PRINT, etc) all have their own single key entry. Pressure Sensitive, plastic membrane keyboard. The Timex Sinclair 1000 Computer was the entry-level computer for anyone interested in computing. While it didn't measure up to more sophisticated offerings from Atari and Texas Instruments, it could still connect to any TV and read and write to a compatible cassette recorder. If you splurged on the $40 16K RAM expansion, you could even play some of the hottest black and white games on the market. The real power of the Sinclair 1000 was teaching you how to program in BASIC -- something that would be helpful years later when you wanted to understand "20 GOTO 10" jokes. All of this and it was $48 cheaper in the Fall/Winter 1983 catalog than the one prior. Now that's a value!
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Uniden Cordless Phones: $250 ---------------------------- __Catalog Description:__ > The digital coded security system allows you to program any one of 256 possible security code combinations in your EX-6000 to prevent unauthorized access to your phone system. Programmable auto dialer stores up to thee numbers (16 digits each) and dials them from memory on a simple 2-button command. Back when you could still lease a phone from the phone company, cordless phones started appearing in the fanciest of homes. The idea of walking around your house while talking on the phone was a freedom that naturally appealed to the chattier Sears customer. But the early cordless phones were also about as secure as yelling your private information out of the window. The Uniden EX-6000 boasted security worthy of, well, not the government. Maybe on par with sending a letter in an envelope instead of via postcard. But the technology bullet train didn't stop there. The phone could also hold three numbers in memory and featured a base station that doubled as a speaker phone. Which if you were near an open window, well, you see the security implications.
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Boom Box: $250 -------------- __Catalog Description:__ > Boom Box with two detachable two-way speakers for greater sound separation, Dolby noise reduction. Automatic program selection system with record mute, metal tape capability. The Boom Box (or Ghetto Blaster, if you were inclined to naming devices after economically depressed areas of a metropolitan area) was the official on-the-go party machine. It brought the party to the streets unlike any device before it. Capable of playing both radio stations and your tapes, you could not escape the deafening roar of the D battery-powered mobile speakers. The Boom Box available from Sears has detachable speakers so you can point your jams anywhere you want. The controls are soft touch so you won't hurt your index finger pressing play, and the sound level LEDs are all the light show you need. Sure, we have smartphones and Bluetooth speakers in this magical new century, but having a boom box at your next picnic will make you a lot cooler.
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VHS - Beta: $890 ---------------- __Catalog Description:__ > Sears Best Beta VCR has four-day, eight-program advance programming, multi-function infrared wireless remote control plus noise-free special effects and more! Quartz synthesized electronic tuner. Everyday function lets you program unit to record program at the same time everyday. Hindsight is 20/20, according to everyone who's made a huge mistake. We still feel particularly bad for those who spent nearly $1,000 on a VCR tied to the losing video cassette format. VHS overtook Beta and became the compatible VCRs ended up on top of all our TVs. Sure, Beta was the superior format. But VHS was everywhere by 1983, and the format helped us record our favorite episodes of *The A-Team*. That is, until the DVD showed up and kicked VCRs to the curb.
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Portable Cassette Player: $60 ----------------------------- __Catalog Description:__ > Anti-rolling mechanism helps keep cassette playing evenly if jarred. Sears didn't sell the Sony Walkman in its catalog. Instead it sold its own SR-branded audio items. Of course, the Sears SR 21162 mini stereo cassette player was probably built by a third party. Regardless of the brand name, portable cassette players were incredibly popular during the '80s. This $60 player included an all-important mute switch, and also had an LED to warn you when your four AA batteries were about to die. Or course, it had rewind and fast-forward buttons too, but real pros knew you would rewind your cassettes by sticking them on the end of a pencil and spinning it in circles to save your batteries.
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Video Disc Player: $290 ----------------------- __Catalog Description:__ > Two-speed visual search quickly lets you find the movie scene you want. Semi-automatic loading plays both stereo and mono CED-format discs. A Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) was not a LaserDisc. Instead, it was an analog format developed by RCA that worked more like a vinyl record and had zero to do with lasers. If you thought that buying a Beta VCR was a bad idea, buying a CED player was disastrous. But if you were an early adopter who was fine with a 50-movie catalog that would be physically worn down by the player until they were unplayable, Sears was happy to sell you their player. You could, however, pause a video while you visited the bathroom, and return "without missing any action."
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Atari 1200 XL: $600 -------------------- __Catalog Description:__ > Stimulate your mind and senses with the thrill of video games, the challenge of programming and the creativity of of graphics and sound. Powerful 64K memory handles complex programs. Full-sized, full-stroke, typewriter-like keyboard, 55 alphanumeric keys plus 11 special function keys. Upper/lower case, full-screen editing, 4 independent sound voices covering 3.5 octaves, and 256 brilliant colors. The Matthew Broderick hacker-film *WarGames* had just landed in theaters and the Apple Macintosh had yet to be announced. This left the Atari 1200 XL as the undisputed computing king in the Sears catalog. Atari was the number one videogame brand in the early 1980s, and many a kid probably received the Atari computer based on name recognition alone. For the serious nerd, the Atari Communicator II Kit ($260) came with a modem and Telelink II cartridge. How else were you going to hack into NORAD and start a thermonuclear war. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
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Canon AE-1 Program: $280 ------------------------ __Catalog Description:__ > Black vinyl-covered metal body with chrome plated trim. Features exposure preview switch memory lock, stop-down lever, and convenient "action grip" to provide a firm grip. Viewfinder shows manual mode, program mode, aperture scale, stopped down metering index, flash ready, and focusing information. The Canon AE-1 was *the* camera to have in the late 1970s early 1980s. The first SLR with a microprocessor sold over a million units, and the camera made plenty of hobbyists happy with its shutter priority auto exposure. Like many other pieces of electronics in the catalog, consumers could opt for the Sears brand version. But why pass up a quality brand-name SLR for $280?
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Steam in a Cabinet: $390 ------------------------ __Catalog Description:__ > Molded fiberglass body. Door has full length stainless steel hinges and seals of neoprene; opens from inside and outside. Why visit a sauna to sweat out all those horrible toxins. This "Gonna Make You Sweat" quasi-torture device can help you steam it up without peeling the paint in your home. Just step inside and enjoy the hot, wet allure of heated water while looking like [Captain Pike from *Star Trek*](http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Christopher_Pike).
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Sensaphone: $200 ---------------- __Catalog Description:__ > Sensaphone is a unique monitoring system that calls and tells you about conditions inside your home or business if there's a problem during your absence. It will keep calling you and 3 other people you designated until someone is alerted. Before Nest and the Internet of Things pushed more data than you can handle to your smartphone, the Sensaphone was the Telephone of Things. The phone accessory would call you (and three of your friends) and warn you if the smoke detector had gone off, if the temperature in your home hit an extreme, if a security alarm went off, or if the power went out. A backup battery made sure pesky things like a power outage couldn't stop the power of the Sensaphone. If the Sensaphone existed today, it might now have a beautiful screen, or allow you to adjust the temperature or turn off a light. Back in the '80s though, it called you in "ENGLISH" to warn you that maybe the family room was on fire. What more do you want from the Telephone of Things?
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10 Speeds: $260 --------------- __Catalog Description:__ > Suteki Bikes are built to meet the demands of serious bikers and have these features for lightness and high performance. We love our bicycles here at Wired. How many gears do these bikes have? Maybe 21? Possibly 10. People stopped counting years ago. It's up to the rider and whatever random high-dollar gears they cram on their bike. During the 1980s, 10 gears was the preferred number for riding around town in shorts that in hindsight could have been a touch longer. You could buy a 10-speed from Sears for less than $300. That's a pretty good deal. Just strap a boom box to the handlebars and you're the rolling party that's not afraid of a few steep inclines. "I got 10 gears. Bring it, hills."
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Computer Glossary: Free ----------------------- __Catalog Description:__ > Access Time - the time it takes for info to be written to or read from a diskette, cassette, or Wafertape. Many a nerd in 1983 tore out this page and pasted it to their wall. Right now those kids are rolling around in giant vats of money. Or they have fond recollections of their school's computer lab and late-night Dungeons & Dragons parties. Either way, these were the trailblazers of today's technology and Sears helped them clear the road for the Internet, smartphones, and comment sections filled with bile. Sears was taking up valuable catalog space (they could have always crammed another set of hideous-looking drapes into their catalog) to educate its customers about computers. While some of the lingo is lost to the ongoing march of technology, some of the terms are still in use by nerds just like you and I.
