What inventions do you remember seeing for the first time and being amazed by?

[BettyCarver]

I remember the first time I saw someone with a Sony Walkman; it must have been about 1982; this dead cool guy at university. I remember it looking incredible that someone could walk around listening to cassette tapes like that The guy was pretty well off which I imagine is no coincidence because walkman’s must have been relatively hugely expensive back then.
Seems so funny now when you think of all the stages we’ve gone through since then for listening to music

I saw the countdown traffic lights (the one which show pedestrians how long they have to cross the road) in Ukraine in 2009, a few good years before they turned up in the U.K. I thought that they were very clever

Those dolls plastic bottles that magically drained the milk out 🤯🤣

A computer mouse!

Owning a mobile phone that was colour other than orange and have games other than just snake!

A walkman

A reserve vending machine for used drinks cans and bottles in Singapore in the early 1990's. You got discount vouchers in return.

CDs on tomorrow’s world.

A calculator, in primary school in the late 70s.

@Aposterhasnoname

CDs on tomorrow’s world.

Is that the one where they put jam on it to prove it could still be played afterwards?

A laptop. Director brought it to our office and we were amazed. 1987ish? No wires! Astonishing.

Curtains that closed themselves on a timer or with a remote. This was the 70’s and my friend’s dad was really into gadgets and tech. Theirs was the first place I saw a vcr (Betamax) and a mobile phone too!

@RonniePickering

Those dolls plastic bottles that magically drained the milk out 🤯🤣

Oh Yes! I remember sitting there trying to work it out.

Not seeing as such, but having hyperlinks explained to me in the very (very!) early days of the internet and realising that you could jump around sources of information rather than having to read them like a book. Mind blown!

A video. In 1977 we went to stay with my Dad's friend. We arrived late in the evening and his wife was watching Coronation Street. It was so exciting to me that they could record their TV programmes.

A fax machine. I was amazed that you could send a picture to someone else!

The microwave. I remember dad coming home from Currys in town, it was a hot Saturday afternoon and mum made me microchips in it washed down with cola from the sodastream. I loved them!

I remember watching TV for the first time in the late 50s. I know it had been invented for some time before but I don't think there had been a signal in my remote area.

Automatic opening doors. They were in a local, family owned supermarket. I didn't know they were operated by a sensor, I thought that it was the 'magic' mat that you had to walk over to go through the door that told them to open. This was around 1968-9 when I was 8-9.

i was very easily impressed in those days

DVDs. Compared to VHS, case was much thinner and disc had far longer life.

@MrsDThomas

The microwave. I remember dad coming home from Currys in town, it was a hot Saturday afternoon and mum made me microchips in it washed down with cola from the sodastream. I loved them!

Also the microwave - my dad brought it back from the shop and him, me, my mum, and sister all excitedly huddled round to watch a cold mug of water get heated up!

MP3. All the music you want just playing for hours on a small gadget, no rewinding a tape or skipping DJs talking as you'd taped the music off the radio.

email and the internet, in the computer rooms at university. The geeky boys were using it to look up Readers' Wives style letters. (I don't know it if it had photo technology - it was all a bit Teletext to begin with.)

Cashpoints! My dad told us he was going to get some money from a hole in the wall and we didn’t believe him.

Cashmachines - a total game changer

Digital watches

I'm sitting in a cafe opposite Iron Bridge. That is pretty amazing!

I remember seeing some big touchscreen table thing demoed right when smartphones were just coming in. I believe it was actually called Microsoft Surface although it never took off and they obviously recycled the name later.

The idea was you could use it in restaurants to display nutrition info and calorie counts of food, to interactively browse menus and ask for drinks refills, order extras etc without having to wait for a waiter. But it could also be used at home (recipes) and in businesses (interactive presentations). There were probably other uses but I forget.

Actually smartphones - I remember browsing mumsnet on my ex's phone in the back of the car and just being amazed at being able to do that! And they have changed the way we use the internet so much.

YouTube was amazing when it first came out as well. Video that you didn't have to download. Yes OK you often had to wait longer than the video's actual length for it to buffer :o but once it had done that it played so smoothly.

And USB sticks! So tiny for all that storage and you didn't need a special reader for them.

Prosthetics that can be moved using the patient's thoughts