On the last magazine run to the bins, I found a 1983 Saturday Evening Post. Now, this 1983 mag was a far cry from its heyday publication during the the first 30 years of the 20th century. The 'real' Saturday Evening Post published from 1821 until 1969 when it was killed off by television. The 1983 magazine I found was actually just a 'nostalgia' issue. Those issues published sporadically throughout the 1970's and 1980's.
The Saturday Evening Post became famous for its cover art. Can anyone say "Norman Rockwell, and before Rockwell was "Charles Gibson". Gibson originated the 'Gibson Girl', a pre-movies ideal of the modern American girl next door who wore sensible clothes, no corset, rode a bicycle, used small amounts of make-up, and viewed herself as part of the larger world. The Post also published short stories, but those offerings were considered more popular works than literary (that field was covered by the New Yorker and Collier's). The notable exception was F. Scott Fitzgerald who published in the Saturday Evening Post.
So, back to my 1983 Saturday Evening Post. I bought it to see what America looked like 32 years ago. There was a profile of Willard Scott, already the 'beloved' weather man of the Today Show. An editorial was bemoaning the lack of 'commitment' between young people. (Boy, those young people are always a source of constant disappointment to the older generation, aren't they?) The article which really, really grabbed my attention was "Electronic Gift Giving - Batteries Not Included". The subtitle was: 'Our choice of high-tech offerings you may want to plug into your Christmas shopping list'
The first product was 'Component TV'. A Proton (yes, really) 600M 19" color monitor with a high resolution picture and a home computer hook-up to the 600T video tuner could accommodate 105 cable channels! It retailed for ONLY $1050. (That's about $2500 in a today's dollars.) Then, there's digital sound which has just been 'improved' to no longer have a stylus but instead uses laser technology. Forget LP's, in 1983 it's palm sized discs featuring shiny surfaces that send digital messages to the player. Each disc is in the $20 range (about $48 in 2015).
There are also available for the 1983 Christmas season computer phones with microprocessors that remember numbers and have a speaker - only $350 for the Genesis AT&T model. My two favorite gifts were: the Seiko Talking Watch (which SEP compared to the 'Dick Tracy' watch of the comic strip.) On the talking watch 8 seconds of sound could be recorded and played back at a set time all for just $195 ($463 today.)
My big winner of 1983 was the cutting edge electronic game: Monty Plays Scrabble! This was a hand held scrabble game which was NOT inactive beyond the 'hint' function if you let the device randomly select your letters. Up to three people could play, and it came with a 12,000 word (politically correct) dictionary. In later years, you could 'upgrade' the
dictionary with add-ons to bring the dictionary up to 44,000 entries. (FYI - that's roughly one-fourth of the current words available to an English speaker. I wonder which ones were left out of the Monty dictionary?) Monty had a few drawbacks: It didn't display the game board since it only had an 8x4 character LCD display. You had to draw the board with paper and pencil or use the traditional game board. As far as I could tell, the biggest plus was you didn't have to carry all those pesky wooden tiles with you and a paper dictionary for disputes. This was 'scrabble on the go' circa early 1980's Casio also had an entertainment entry in 1983 using microprocessors in its $200 electronic keyboard (with an built in cassette player, already passe' at the time). The keyboard could simulate additional musical instruments as well as 16 beguiling background rhythms. I've heard these, and oh, you never forget them. This high-tech addition to the keyboard world quickly jumped into the organ market, and there are still churches out there with tango rhythms to embellish the hymns.
'Notebook' computers are in their infancy. The first available for the consumer market were packed into medium sized hard case briefcases, and had to have an external power supply (ie plugged into the wall). The newest models of 1983 "have a full keyboard, a large 40 column LCD display and built in word processing and communication programs" (They don't mean email.) These are marketed for traveling journalists - meaning let the company pop for this - because they cost $799 ($1900 in 2015).
Finally, video learning is touted in this 1983 magazine as the 'new genre' in the video game market. Video games are disparaged as "having at least one redeeming factor - they help develop coordination. Few, however, deserve the hours of attention some young users give them." (We are talking about Astron Belt and Donkey Kong, Jr to name a couple). The new video teacher is Basic Number Facts. It "combines flashy fun with educational qualities". You'd think they could have found a better name - oh, yeah, I want to play number facts with a teacher.
As I flipped through the magazine, I especially noted the advertisements. Yes, we were already a consumption society. I came across the "Itty Bitty Booklight", a product I still have. There was also the 'Best Little Bullshit Scraper in Texas!' with *shit* censored out of the title. It's only $9.95 (plus p & h).
Obviously, 'shipping' is not something used for such a low priced product. It was made of heavy cast steel, weighed 3 pounds and you pushed it into the ground at a door entrance as a shoe cleaner. A full page ad of 'Toast Your NFL Team' by purchasing mugs, tankards, plaques, tote bags or even the tankard lamp with a free key ring thrown in for with every purchase looked pretty much like the tasteless sports items available in 2015 until I noticed there were no Titans or Ravens, and very few of the logos were unchanged. There were still personal ads, much more genteelly phrased, Currier and Ives prints and Hummel figurines. And the topper: Yes, you could buy a Christmas fruitcake shipped through the mail in 1983 just showing the more things change, the more they remain the same. I wonder if any of those fruitcakes are still being re-gifted? 
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