New York, Dec. 26: This has been a great year for the next new electronic thing. The iPad, new iPhone, the Nexus S, HTC Evo and other Android phones, the Kindle 3 and Microsoft’s Kinect caught the eye of consumers.
But some people prefer their next new thing to look like an old thing.
So what’s the appeal of the latest electronics wrapped in a retro design, like full-size jukeboxes that are really $4,000 iPod docks and manual typewriters reconfigured to work as USB keyboards? Has anyone ever said, “It’s a nice Ferrari, but it would be cooler if it looked like a covered wagon?”
There are theories: the throwback designs make challenging technologyseem familiar. For the technically proficient, an old phone handset that connects to a cellphone seems comically ironic. Retro designs can also give a sense of permanence to disposable devices. Some of it is art.
An example of the phenomena is a manual typewriter refashioned as a computer keyboard. Mr Jack Zylkin of Philadelphia made one as a novel way for people to sign in when visiting Hive76, a Philadelphia communal studio for electronics tinkerers. “I thought it would be kind of alark,” he said. “I didn’t realise there was such demand for them.” Now he is turning out several typewriters a week, with a two to three week lead time for new orders.
Mr Zylkin says he starts with a typewriter that has been refurbished by a retired Remington salesman, then wires it with a sensor board that recognises when a key is pressed. It leads to a USB plug thatmakes the typewriter work like any computer keyboard.
Even if the typebar doesn’t hit the platen, a computer will recognise the input, but if you bang the keys hard enough you can make an old-school hard copy on paper while a computer also records your keystrokes.
The typewriters sell for $600 to $900 at the web site Etsy, although it is $400 if you supply your own typewriter. If you are handy with a soldering iron, you can buy Mr Zylkin’s do-it-yourself conversion kit for $70.
A variation of this theme of fashioning the old into new relies on the smart design of the old Western Electric Bell telephones. Consider the handset. Unlike today’s telephone earpieces and cabled headphones and mic arrangements, the large handset put the speaker over the ear and the microphone next to the mouth so bystanders weren’t forced to listen to bellowed phone conversations.
The gadget purveyors ThinkGeek have taken that old handset and added Bluetooth so you can have some privacy while connected wirelessly to a mobile phone. The $25 handset can transmit and receive at a distance of about 30 feet from your phone.
Crosley Radio has been making the old new again since the early 1980s when a group of investors bought a discarded radio brand and started cranking out replica radios. The company has replica Wurlitzer-style jukeboxes that play music from CDs or iPods. “What really rolls out the door is the turntables, that has been a runaway train,” said Mr James P. LeMastus, president of Crosley. The company has had a hit with the Crosley AV Room Portable USB turntable, made exclusively for the clothing chain Urban Outfitters.