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Past Forward

This series looks at historical artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of technology
A color photo of an electronic device with knobs across the bottom and a round display depicting the solar system.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineOctober 2023ArticleType

The Marimba Virtuoso’s Desktop Planetarium

The inventor of this space-age orrery had a soft spot for Halley’s Comet

7 min read
Black and white photo of smoke rising from buildings, some of which are collapsed.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineSeptember 2023ArticleType

Taking the Measure of the Earthquake That Destroyed Tokyo

A century on, we’re good at detecting earthquakes, not so good at protecting against them

6 min read
A multiple-exposure black and white photo showing a man flexing a prosthetic arm.
History of TechnologyTopicAugust 2023MagazineBiomedicalArticleType

The Cold War Arms Race Over Prosthetic Arms

The Russian Hand came first, but the Boston Arm was better

7 min read
This 1920 Chess Automaton Was Wired to Win
History of TechnologyTopicJuly 2023MagazineArticleTypeRobotics

This 1920 Chess Automaton Was Wired to Win

Inventor Leonardo Torres Quevedo aspired to build machines that think

7 min read
A photo of an antique contraption having glass disks, a wooden base, and supporting wires.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeJune 2023

James Wimshurst’s Electrostatic Immortality

Little is known about the man, but his iconic generators live on

4 min read
A photo of a dented metal object encased in a tan outer coating.
History of TechnologyTopicAerospaceMagazineArticleTypeMay 2023

Skylab: The Space Station That Fell on Australia

Repaired during one of the riskiest missions ever, it orbited for 6 years

6 min read
A dollhouse-size model house and tower made of painted metal. The tower has a long rod protruding from its top.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeApril 2023

Tiny Exploding Houses Promoted 18th-Century Lightning Rods

Zapping gunpowder with an electric spark made a compelling demo

6 min read
A screenshot of a bitmapped and mostly grayscale computer desktop with text in multiple windows and a cartoon of a leprechaun.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeMarch 2023

Smalltalk Blew Steve Jobs’s Mind

Its graphical user interface inspired change at Apple’s core

1 min read
A photo of a cathode-ray tube television set housed in clear plastic.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeFebruary 2023

RCA’s Lucite Phantom Teleceiver Introduced the Idea of TV

In 1939, RCA had to convince people they wanted television

5 min read
A rectangular kitchen appliance with a metal housing, a glass door, and two dials on the righthand side.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeConsumer ElectronicsJanuary 2023

Always Break Yolks: The Joy of Microwave Cooking

A homeowner’s intro to microwave oven cuisine, circa 1980

6 min read
A small electronic gadget encased in clear plastic has a speaker and some buttons.
History of TechnologyTopicDecember 2022MagazineArticleTypeSemiconductorsSpecial Reports

John Bardeen’s Terrific Transistorized Music Box

This simple gadget showed off the magic of the first transistor

5 min read
A boxy retro game console with a CRT screen with the word Pong on the front.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeNovember 2022

Pong Was Boring—And People Loved It

50 years on, we reflect on what made this simplest of video games so seductive

7 min read
An antique medical apparatus consisting of a black wand, various glass tools to plug into the wand, and a power cord.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineBiomedicalArticleTypeOctober 2022

The Electric Purple Snake-Oil Machine

The violet ray machine’s Tesla coil could cure almost anything—supposedly

6 min read
A robot arm sitting on a rectangular base with control panels at the back.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeSeptember 2022

In 1961, the First Robot Arm Punched In

The era of industrial robots began with Unimate, at a GM plant in Trenton

6 min read
A blue and yellow lunch box decorated with cartoon characters from the future.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeAugust 2022

Will a Baby Born Today Grow up to Live Like the Jetsons?

Its space-age world featured flying cars, food replicators, and a 9-hour workweek

4 min read
A satellite image shows vegetation in red tones and urban and rocky areas in grays and whites.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineTypeArticleJuly 2022

Landsat Proved the Power of Remote Sensing

The Earth-imaging satellites have amassed a half-century of data on crops, borders, and war zones

6 min read
An intricate metal clockwork consisting of columns of toothed gears on a rectangular wooden base.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeJune 2022

Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine Turns 200

Error-riddled astronomical tables inspired the first computer—and the first vaporware

7 min read
An elongated glass vacuum tube sits lengthwise on a wooden stand.
History of TechnologyTopicMagazineArticleTypeMay 2022

Did J.J. Thomson Discover the Electron?

Despite Thomson’s 1897 announcement of subatomic “corpuscles,” he wasn’t the only one hunting for the electron

8 min read