26 January 11
By: Angus
Comments: 2
Tags /
computers
Honeywell
Recipes
“If she can only cook as well as Honeywell can compute” exclaims the slogan beneath an advertisement for the 1969 Honeywell Kitchen Computer. A housewife looks on suitably intimidated. An alien slab of hardware has landed in the middle of her kitchen.
It’s sleek and dangerous looking- like it was designed to penetrate air defenses, or travel faster than the speed of light. There are buttons on it with obscure annotations such as ‘SENSE’ and ‘FETCH’, and a lever that looks like the kind of thing you’d pull to switch on the national grid.
Despite its aggressive styling, the Honeywell Kitchen Computer came in peace. Its benign mission was to unspool recipe suggestions whilst doubling up as a chopping board. This functionality came at a cost- $10,000 of your cash and a two week training course to learn how to program it (inclusive in price). Reportedly, not a single unit sold.
This is a great shame as the Honeywell Kitchen Computer was way ahead of its time. It was another 10 years until computers became popular household objects and 15 years for Apple to design a computer that felt like a piece of furniture. The Honeywell’s brilliant styling- the splash of lipstick red, the ergonomic contours, remind me of Apple’s revolutionary candy coloured iMacs. Clearly it was never meant to be another domestic utility, it was a grand statement, haute couture technology, a ray of hope from the future.
Now the future has arrived and hope is here but in a different form. Jamie Oliver beams out of my iPhone offering me recipes for every occasion, cajoling me along with his boundless enthusiasm. He is the spirit of Honeywell Home Computer, liberating me from the confines of my culinary imagination, offering me a wealth of knowledge at the touch of a button.
Jamie computes well and I can cook as well as he can compute. The promise of the Honeywell Home Computer has finally arrived.
Control panel and integrated chopping board
The Honeywell in its full glory
Spools of computing power
An original advertisement for the Honeywell
Angus Mackinnon
Creative Director
Comments
30 January 11
By: Phil
So we Brits aren't the only ones...
I thought we British were uniquely gifted at inventing things that nobody wanted but I'm happy to be proved wrong...
A favourite in my camera collection is a red leatherette and gold plated miniature camera from the 50s which manages to house a built-in powder compact and lipstick within dimensions small enough to slip unobtrusively into your handbag.
But my favourite was developed by an inventor in Hertfordshire, who came up with a device to supposedly help locate ferrets that chased rabbits down holes and got lost. The idea was that a small black box was attached to the ferret. It emitted signals which could be picked up by the ferret owner, helping him (definitely him) re-locate said ferret. It all sounded great in theory, but when the device was tested out the only signals the device could actually pick up and transmit turned out to be Radio Moscow! Not only was that not much use, but the ferret was never found and the device was lost down a rabbit hole forever. Needless to say, a patent was not granted and the invention died a quick death.
08 February 11
By: Richard Madden
What a brilliant bit of kit!
A computer that doubles as a chopping board! Must remember to try that with my new iPad.
Seriously, remember those web-enabled fridges that Samsung or someone was pushing five years ago? Interesting that the functionality they offered is now available in your kitchen, but courtesy of your phone and Red Laser rather than your fridge.
Technology's often like that, I find. The direction of travel is predictable. The route we eventually take to get there very rarely is.