The Antique Toaster that's Better than Yours

What people said

tpoacher · 2025-04 · Strong recommendation

A related thought, just leaving this here. There's something great about old technology (though obviously one must be aware of survivorship bias when citing such technology), despite the fact that, logically speaking, new technology should have obviously been better. Perhaps it's some variant of Jevons' paradox. The better / more efficient things get, the more of an impetus there is to use them in truly crappy ways. And this is how I'm starting to feel about programming with vs without an AI: you can either program manually to create truly creative, functional, elegant stuff, or use AI to produce garbage more efficiently. There just doesn't seem to be an in-between category, at least in terms of demand. In case you haven't seen this video of a toaster from the 60s before, you're in for a treat: [VIDEO] I'm also reminded of Edsger Dijkstra's quote on elegance: [LINK]

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adfm · 2019-11 · Strong recommendation

The Sunbeam Radiant Control Toaster predates both and seems worth mentioning here for it’s superior user experience and unique analog technology. Technology Connections produced a fantastic teardown video of it a while back. [VIDEO]

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wumms · 2024-07 · Recommendation

> You might think such a system would involve a thermostat, a microcontroller, and an actuator, but this design [...] has bimetallic arms with steel on the outer surface and copper on the inner surface. As the filament heats up, the arms warm up, causing the copper to expand faster than the steel. This expansion pushes the arms open, releasing the lighter. The coil spring then causes the handle to pop out, signaling that the lighter is ready. Maybe I am in a picky mood, but for me the intro made it sound like all three items (thermostat, microcontroller, actuator) would not be necessary, though of course only the microprocessor is missing from the design (thermostat -> bimetallic arms, actuator -> spring). Mandatory link to another marvel in the same problem space (I found the 19min video worth the time): "An Antique Toaster That's Better Than Today’s [video]" [VIDEO] [LINK] [2019, 386 points|5 years ago|232 comments]

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