TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name

When TVs were first invented, nobody could afford one. Small towns all over the US installed large cabinets outside of every town hall with the biggest CRT screens they could afford in them, which was only about 9" at the time.

People would crowd around them to watch the news every night.

Sometimes they'd do movie nights where they would put up giant curved mirrors to make the picture much bigger, and they'd put up big loudspeakers for the audio. Only problem is that everything would be backwards, so they couldn't watch movies with subtitles.

Eventually TVs became cheap enough to get in the home, but this was pretty inexpensive entertainment for people, especially during the Great Depression. People would even try to earn a few $ by selling homemade treats during the movie nights.

Prototype Sony WatchMan

That's a premium piece of tech. A Simmons TCR signal isolator, with mechanical switches. Been decades since I saw one. The new SDRs are technically more efficient, but you could dial this baby in so much better than the autoisolators we work with now. Of course external signal gates are a thing so focusing isn't really an issue anymore, but damn do I miss spending half an hour hunting for that perfect shade of orange.

I miss the VXJunkies subreddit. Is there an equivalent here?

Jeffrey Combs

That's an old iphone from the 80s.

The Crushinator

Grandma keeps the Atari in the drawers.

A Dalek with an office job.

A vintage oscilloscope in its original wrought iron casing. The drawers are for storing solder, probes, and electrolyte syringes.

That's a console TV on top of the dresser

Original Model Janet from the Beta version of The Good Place.

This is a vintage prototype for a two bay airfryer

I just love the awful tan fabric speaker cover. Couldn't go with a metal grate, which would've been more hi-tech?

This is a old filing cabinet with a screen for indexing.

That's the first costume/makeup pass for Brent Spiner.

It's a Comscanner from The Orville

That’s the oft-overlooked TRS-66 Micro Computer System. One of the first home computers to feature coloured blinky lights; prior to that, home computers were limited to using standard E26 bulbs for status lights.

PipMan

R2/D2s father

It's the machine that goes "PING!" From the maternity ward scene in the Monty Python movie Meaning of Life.

The first prototype GameBoy, with drawers below the screen to hold the cartridges.

It's a trash can from 1984.

This isn't one of those old Kodak cameras where the picture instantly printed out?

Ye olde Spank Deposit.

They keep these in hospital rooms and some obscure roadsides for when people need to be walked through moving jizzsm from your body to a drawer for safe keeping and later consumption.

Armus' mobile phone

1980s hotel minibar

Before we had digital filesystems our ancestors had to use analog filesystems. This one has an analog "browser" called a CRT built into the top of the cabinet, so users could browse their files on the go. It may seem quaint now but it was all the rage back when it came out.

Pan-dimensional periscope.

its one of those drawers you can loot in arc raiders

Early smartphone

This is one of the old analog dresser cabinets. We take the technology for granted now but it was revolutionary for its time. A camera from the top drawer is connected to the screen above, so that you can monitor your unmentionables and make sure no one is actively getting into your underwear.

It's the dolls house version of the HP 8920A RF Communications Test Set.

Mailbox. I don't know the correct answer anyway...

It's the tricorder before the one in TOS

It's the chest of drawers from a dolls' house. Someone's put a TV on it presumably so they can watch in bed.

It's the machine that goes "BING"

The green cumulon

You're all wrong! Fools!

Everyone knows it's a Kirk era tricorder.