Friday Fun Fact

I was talking to my my 7 year old son, Monkey, today about how many of the common entertainment technologies of today weren't available or weren't common in every household when I was a kid. And some of them that made appearances in our lifetime are obsolete already! Walkman anyone? I think I still have Van Halen's Jump cassette tape around somewhere...............

He was shocked to learn that we only had 5 channels and that "kid shows" were not on 24/7 much less ENTIRE channels that program only kid shows. I think if I told him we didn't have a remote and had to change the channels by HAND it would have totally cooked his noodle.

Monkey's mouth hung open when I told him that we didn't own a VCR until I was in High School. I told Monkey that we used to rent a VCR every New Year's Eve as a treat. I told him only "rich" people actually owned one. Come to think of it, I'm a little surprised he even remembers VCRs!!!!

As we kept talking about it he asked me today who invented DVD players. So, I googled it and found out lots of interesting info on the technologies from our childhood and ones still current today.

1) No one person is credited for "inventing" the CD or DVD player. The first CD player was invented and produced by Sony and Phillips.

2) The first CD player went on the market in 1980! It cost about $900!!!!! The first portable CD player for cars became available in 1984.

4) The first music CD released was Billy Joel's 52nd Street.

5) After the CD player made it's appearance on the market several companies began to work on the DVD player. However, DVD movies and players were not available until 1997! Apparently, the companies working on the DVD were focused more on developing DVD's for storing information for several years.

6) The first movie to be released on DVD was "Twister".

7) The first VCR intended for home use was released in 1972 by Sony and Phillips in England and it cost about $5,000!!!!!!!! (No wonder only "rich" people had them)

8) The first VHS movie released was "The Young Teacher", a Korean film.

9) Cassette tape players were first introduced in 1964 in Germany. They were used mostly to record.

10) The first pre-recorded music tape, called a musicassette, was released in 1965 by the Mercury Record Company in Germany. They were available in the US in 1966, about 49 titles were available.

11) The popularity of the Walkman in the 80's is what killed records and made tapes the main way folks enjoyed pre-recorded music. But as we all know CD's killed tapes faster than tapes killed records and MP3 players are very quickly killing portable CD players...............ipods, iphones, on and on and on.

What will are grandkids listen to music and watch movies on?????