When I was in grade school, one of my teachers loved showing us old tapes of the educational TV program Mr. Wizard's World that she found languishing in the library. Whenever we had a rainy recess, she'd pop one of these in, and we'd get an outdated science or technology lesson. Here's host Don Herbert taking apart and stumbling through a guided tour through the innards of an Atari 1200XL [via the Retroist]:
Mr. Wizard's World ran from 1983-1990, but Don Herbert's role as tech-savvy Mr. Wizard started in 1951 on the show Watch Mr. Wizard. I'm really happy to see this show again. It reminds me of the time when I found all science to be cool and mystifying. I'm jaded now. If it isn't a Large Hadron Collider, it isn't cool.
Haha, I vaguely remember Mr. Wizard. I was a bit too young for that show. I do remember Mr. Rogers though, he had some cool visits to various factories. I'm with you on the jaded part, if it's not the LHC or at least another awesome documentary series from the likes of Stephan Hawking, Morgan Freeman, or Michio Kaku, it's just not cool enough.
"It's very complicated, and I certainly have a great deal of respect for the engineers who designed it."
What would he say about modern consoles?
I wish science shows were still like this.