A year of prototypes more than products
Technology in 1967 is easiest to understand as a year when several ideas that would later become ordinary appeared in early form. Three are worth looking at: a plan for a computer network presented in October, a handheld calculator prototype built at Texas Instruments, and a countertop microwave oven sold under the Amana name. None was an overnight success, and in each case the full effect took years.
The ARPANET plan
In October 1967, Larry Roberts, a computer scientist working for the US Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, presented a plan for linking computers at different research sites. He gave the paper at a symposium on operating system principles held in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
The idea was to connect the machines of research institutions so that people at one site could use programs and data at another. The plan used small dedicated computers at each site to handle the communication, rather than asking the large host machines to do so. Those dedicated computers were later called interface message processors.
Another idea, packet switching, was being developed in parallel. It breaks messages into small pieces that travel separately and are put back together at the destination. Researchers in Britain, including Donald Davies at the National Physical Laboratory, had been working on a similar approach, and a paper from that group was reportedly presented at the same symposium. The work of Paul Baran in the United States on distributed communications was also part of the background.
It is important not to overstate 1967. This was a plan, not a network. The first links of the ARPANET went live in late 1969, and the system stayed a research tool for years. The ARPANET plan is now remembered because it led to the first large packet-switched network, but at the time it was a proposal discussed among specialists.
The handheld calculator prototype
In 1967, a team at Texas Instruments that included Jack Kilby, who had built an early working integrated circuit in 1958, built an experimental handheld calculator. It was reportedly a prototype that used integrated circuit chips to do the arithmetic and printed its results on a strip of paper. It was a research project, not a product, and it is generally described as an early step toward the pocket calculator.
Commercial handheld calculators came later. A Japanese company, Canon, introduced one in 1970 in collaboration with Texas Instruments, and prices fell quickly in the following years. Before then, most people who needed to calculate used slide rules, mechanical adding machines or desktop electronic calculators that were large and expensive. The 1967 prototype is a good example of how a laboratory demonstration can come years before anything reaches a shop.
The Amana Radarange
The microwave oven was not new in 1967. The heating effect of microwaves had been noticed in the 1940s by an engineer at the Raytheon company, and large, costly commercial ovens followed. What changed in 1967 was the launch of a countertop model for the home under the Amana brand, which was owned by Raytheon, with the name Radarange.
It was a small enough machine to sit on a kitchen counter and could be plugged into a standard outlet. It was also expensive. A price of around five hundred dollars is often quoted, which was a large sum in 1967, though the exact figure is uncertain. Sales were slow at first, and household use did not become common until the late 1970s and 1980s, when prices fell and more recipes and packaged foods were designed for microwaves.
Other technology in the same year
These three stories sit among many others, which are covered in more detail elsewhere on this site:
- The first cash machine was installed at a Barclays branch in London in June 1967.
- The Boeing 747 was rolled out in September, though it would not enter service for some time.
- Color television was spreading in American homes, with more programmes being broadcast in color each season.
- The Saturn V rocket made its first flight in November, an uncrewed test.
- Large computers, including IBM mainframes, were the main computing technology in business.
Each of these shows a pattern. A technology appears, is expensive or limited, and then reaches ordinary people years later.
Idea, prototype, product
The date of an invention and the date of its impact are often far apart. An October paper on a network of research computers, a calculator that printed on paper and a pricey oven for the kitchen did not change daily life in 1967. Each became part of it over the following decade or two, which is a reminder to say whether a “first” means the first idea, the first prototype or the first product people could buy.