Technology Connections
12 HN recommenders · recommended in 15 months, 2019–2025
18:28 · 3.4M views · Apr 19, 2019
Technology Connections takes apart a 1940s Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster. It senses the toast's own browning and lowers and raises it automatically using purely mechanical parts and no electronics.
HN returns to it again and again as a favorite example of elegant, chip-free mechanical engineering that beats modern toasters.
20 comments from Hacker News
A related thought, just leaving this here. There's something great about old technology (though obviously one must be aware of survivorship bias when citing such technology), despite the fact that, logically speaking, new technology should have obviously been better. Perhaps it's some variant of Jevons' paradox. The better / more efficient things get, the more of an impetus there is to use them in truly crappy ways. And this is how I'm starting to feel about programming with vs without an AI: you can either program manually to create truly creative, functional, elegant stuff, or use AI to produce garbage more efficiently. There just doesn't seem to be an in-between category, at least in terms of demand. In case you haven't seen this video of a toaster from the 60s before, you're in for a treat: this video I'm also reminded of Edsger Dijkstra's quote on elegance: [LINK]
The Sunbeam Radiant Control Toaster predates both and seems worth mentioning here for it’s superior user experience and unique analog technology. Technology Connections produced a fantastic teardown video of it a while back. this video
> You might think such a system would involve a thermostat, a microcontroller, and an actuator, but this design [...] has bimetallic arms with steel on the outer surface and copper on the inner surface. As the filament heats up, the arms warm up, causing the copper to expand faster than the steel. This expansion pushes the arms open, releasing the lighter. The coil spring then causes the handle to pop out, signaling that the lighter is ready. Maybe I am in a picky mood, but for me the intro made it sound like all three items (thermostat, microcontroller, actuator) would not be necessary, though of course only the microprocessor is missing from the design (thermostat -> bimetallic arms, actuator -> spring). Mandatory link to another marvel in the same problem space (I found the 19min video worth the time): "An Antique Toaster That's Better Than Today’s [video]" this video [LINK] [2019, 386 points|5 years ago|232 comments]
The reason is that old toaster designs had unpolarized plugs and therefore a good chance of uninsulated live wires inside, even when off. Modern toasters don't anymore, but folk wisdom lasts forever. Although you make a good point that if your outlet polarity is reversed, you might still have a problem. I don't know if modern designs are robust to that... I learned this from a video about old Sunbeam toasters that was unexpectedly fascinating: this video
People might _say_ they want something made locally, but when it comes to _spending_ money, they mostly care about price and quality, less about patriotism. Compare the paper 'Prejudice is Free, but Discrimination has Costs' [LINK] In any case, if you are interested in fancy toasters, you might like to have a look at this video