Crank Magneto Telephone��

Manufacture Period: c. 1909

This is a crank magneto telephone; telephone magneto technology was in use since the late 19th century and found continued use into the 1950s due to slow development in Canadian rural areas — an issue we continue to see with high-speed internet access. This model uses 5 bars, with the manual crank capable of creating 50 to 100 volts of electricity. This energy was then capable of traveling on an installed telephone line where electrical signal would ring the bells on another phone within the system – although anyone on the line could listen in to these conversations. This particular unit was produced out of 18-20 Duncan St. Toronto in 1909 and likely was used in one of the rural communities of Ontario.����

The Canadian Independent Telephone Company was founded in the early 20th century by William Woods of Hamilton, ON. The company was founded to serve the growing amount of independent telephone carriers, located primarily in more rural areas of Canada. These smaller companies would pop up to prove the convenience of telephones in communities that monopolies like Bell overlooked for the sake of profit. The Canadian Independent Telephone Company was an assembler of telephone technologies such as: telephones, switchboards and other materials to start up these local telephone companies across the country. One of their manufacturing plants was at 18-20 Duncan St. Toronto, and this location façade is still standing as a Thai restaurant. The company would later merge with Canadian Machine Telephone Co. Before branching out into radio technology development in 1920.�� This joint radio production venture even once employed Ted Rogers, notable inventor of battery-less radio and founder of the company which would later become Rogers-Majestic. Canadian Independent Telephone Co. defaulted on loans in 1924 and fell into receivership by Bell in 1925.

Manufactured in Toronto
On loan from Prof. Allan Thompson

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Television/Broadcast Reciever

Manufacture Period: 1950s

Brand: Rogers-Majestic
Model: M7550��

Rogers-Majestic is a Toronto-based radio manufacturing company. Also known as Rogers Radio Tube, it was a model type tube manufacturer specializing in radios and television sets. In 1929, the company held distribution, manufacturing and trade-mark rights over Majestic Electric radios (Grigsby-Grunow Company), which was founded in 1924. In 1934, Rogers acquired Consolidated Industries Ltd as well as its subsidiaries, De Forest Radio Corp., Norge, Hammond and Consolidated Industries Products Ltd. In 1940, the business changed its name from Rogers Radio Tube to Rogers-Majestic TV. In 1941, Small Electric Motors bought the Rogers-Majestic Corp. Ltd, which later became a division of Royal Philips Electronics. Philips and Rogers-Majestic radios and TVs were made until the 1970s.��

The M7550 model was manufactured around the late 1950s. It was made from a common superheterodyne with FM and UHF wave bands. It had the usual PDyn loudspeaker made from moving coil. It showed videos in black and white and was equipped with the US FCC standard VHF tuner.

On loan from Prof. Allan Thompson

Broadcast Reciever

Manufacture Period: 1941/42

Brand: Philco, Philadelphia Stg. Batt. Co.��
Model: 42-390��

The Philadelphia Battery Company, otherwise known as Philco, was founded in 1892 as the Helios Electric Company. Initially��they manufactured carbon-arc lamps, switching to creating batteries for electric vehicles in 1906. They later supplied home charging batteries for radios. In 1928, they became a part of the radio business. Philo Farnsworth worked for Philco from 1931 to 1933 and was credited for inventing the first electronic vacuum tube television system. They were a pioneer in producing batteries, radios and television. They were later purchased by Ford in 1961 and then Phillips in 1981.��

Produced in 1941 to 1942, the Philco 42-390 was a standard broadcast, short-wave and frequency modulation reception radio. It featured electric push-button tuning, eight-tube superheterodynes, XXL tubes and a XXFM tube for A.C. supply line. It provided 540 to 1720 kilocycles for broadcast reception, 9 to 15.5 megacycle for American and Foreign short-wave stations and 42 to 50 megacycles for F.M. stations.����

On loan from Prof. Allan Thompson

Close-up of Philco Radio

Television/Broadcast Reciever

Manufacture Period: 1949/1950

Model: 600 Series

Victor Hugo Emerson created the Emerson Phonograph Co. in New York City in 1915. A few years later the company was led by Benjamin Abrams and Rudloph Kanarak, two phonograph and record salesmen who renamed the company Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corp. They introduced the first radio-phonograph. They were one of the top companies and sold pocket size Peewee radios. In 1947, Emerson Radio & Phonograph created its first postwar product, a television set. They currently sell Microwaves, Toaster Ovens, Wine Coolers, Home Security, Health & Beauty, Clock Radios and more.��

The Emerson Radio and Phonograph Corporation produced the 600 Series from 1949 to 1950 in New York. It was categorized as a television receiver or monitor. It was made from leather, canvas and plastic with a permanent magnet dynamic loudspeaker, VHF tuner and selenium rectifier. It provided channels 2 to 13. It also had a carry handle so users can move the device around easily. The television cost $169.95.��

Manufactured in New York
On loan from Prof. Allan Thompson

Cell Phone

Manufacture Period: 2003

Brand: Palm

The Treo 600 was developed by Handspring. Founded in 1998 as an electronics company, it was later acquired by Palm Inc who had the same founders. Palm had specialized in personal digital assistants since 1992. Hewlett-Packard bought Palm in 2010, but the brand put an end to production in 2011 due to poor sales.����

Released in November 2003, the Treo 600 is about 12cm by 6cm by 2cm. It was a large phone with a QWERTY keyboard, a menu button and a home button. It has four application buttons for easy access such as browsing, email, calendar and contacts. It featured an earpiece, antenna, SDIO/MMC slot, Infared port, power button and a reset pin hole. It allowed users to take pictures of 640×480. The Treo 600 also had a touch screen and a backlit keyboard.

On loan from Prof. Allan Thompson

8mm Home Movie Camera

Manufacture Period: 1932

George Eastman founded the in 1888. Known today as just Kodak, the company started as an analogue photography company and still provides photography and videography equipment for the masses. It developed the first self-contained digital camera.��

The Cine-Kodak Eight Model 60 was created in 1932 in Rochester, New York. The 8mm film home movie camera was relatively affordable so that thousands of people could enjoy making their own movies. It cost $91.50 with a single roll of film costing $2. It could film continuously for half a minute. It features exposure buttons, eye-level finders, automatic film footage indicators and a 13mm lens.��

On loan from Prof. Allan Thompson

Video Game Console

Manufacture Period: 1997

Serial No. AT8607787218

After the Video Game Crash of 1983, Atari went from having the most popular console of the time period to losing hundreds of millions of dollars.��

Formed in 1972, Atari initially produced arcade machines with notable titles like Pong and Breakout. After an array of clones began to hit the market, the company began developing home consoles so people could play these same arcade games in the comfort of their home. These were only single title limited releases, such as but computational technology made it possible to develop hardware with swappable cartridges—a major step forward for the home gamer at the time. Atari released the Atari Video Console System (Atari VCS) in 1977, later renaming it the Atari 2600 to better align with long term branding goals. Being the first video game system with swappable cartridges meant video game development possible without needing to invest in system creation. In 1983, after speculation on the video game market, the industry was oversaturated with poor quality games and an excess number of unsold consoles. Atari and many other video game developers had major revenue drops and reported large losses. .��

This model is the second revision of the Atari 2600 and was rereleased in 1986, being called the Atari Jr. in some territories. Trying to piggyback off �����Գٱ�Ի��’s success with their North American release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985, Atari found modest success with a redesign, a small catalogue of new releases, and a steep price cut to $49.99 USD. Though it could not compete with its contemporaries or the more modern systems, Atari released games for the system up until 1990 and today it is a popular console for homebrew (or fan made) games thanks to the accessibility of the software.��

On loan from Prof. Josh Greenberg

Atari games

�����پ����������Dz�’s Grand Prix (1982)��

Activision was the first third party developer in the video game industry. They also started the tradition of achievement badges in video gaming, with some instruction books, like Grand Prix, telling players to send pictures of their high scores to the company and getting if reaching the score threshold.��

���ٲ�����’s Star Raiders (1980)��

Ported to the Atari 2600 in 1982 by Star Raiders was packaged with the Touch Pad. This missing attachment was similar to a remote, allowing player to use an array of buttons for game play and simulate the computer inputs from the original version. The gameplay featured first-person combat in outer space and is considered to be widely influential to later games of the genre.��

�����Գٱ�Ի��’s Donkey Kong Junior (1982)����

Originally an arcade game, Donkey Kong Junior was ported to the Atari 2600 by Coleco in 1983 and is the only game to feature Mario as the villain. Playing as Donkey Kong Junior, the player would attempt to navigate through hazards on the screen to collect keys and unlock Donkey Kong. This is also the only game in our collection to have the art displayed right side up when inserted into the system. This orientation would become standard with later releases and on succeeding game systems.����

Broadcast Reciever

Manufacture Period: 1950s

Model: Model 5150 Radio

Sparton of Canada was owned by the Spark-Withington company in Michigan, USA. The founders were Winthrop Withington, Philip H. Whithton and William Sparks. On January 20, 1930, they bought a building in London, Ontario and began producing radios in Canada. They closed in 1978; however, they currently design and manufacture avionics, defense, medical and industrial electronic devices.��

The Sparton Model 5150 Radio was a broadcast receiver or WW2 Tunder. It was built during the 1950s with five tubes, 6 AM circuits, two short wave bands, an alternating 117-volt current supply and a permanent magnet dynamic loudspeaker.��

Manufactured in London, Ontario
On loan from Prof. Allan Thompson

Close-up of Sparton radio

Hearing Aid

Brand: PHONAK
Model: EasyLink 0682��

The company started as the AG für Elektroakustik in 1947 by French-Belgian investors. The first hearing aid was manufactured in 1978, which launched Phonak marketing in Germany and France. In 1958 to 1987, the company went through many changes including the name from Phonak Holding AG to the Phonak Group and then the Phonak House. In 1989, the company started producing in US and later launched the PiCS Hearing Computer. In 1995, they launched AudioZoom, the multi-microphone technology and in 1996 the company launched MicroLink, the world’s smallest FM receiver. SmartLink was the first hearing aid that allowed users to have a wireless connection between them and their phone. In 2004, the company produced Savia the hearing aid from bionic system for natural hearing. continues��to operate and produce hearing aids today.��

This product was put on the market in 2005 to be “used by hearing-impaired people” and needed to be used in tandem with hearing aids to provide high sound quality with the push of a button. The internal microphone picks up sound at the source and delivers it directly to the hearing aids through proprietary technology or FM receivers.������

On loan from Prof. Tracey Lauriault

Digital Music Player

Manufacture Period: 2007-14

Model: iPod Classic 80GB

is one of the most famous brands worldwide, with ubiquity in branding, product developments, and marketing. Being considered one of the most valuable companies in the world — with an estimated revenue of $260 billion at the time of writing this article — it is my assumption that nearly everyone reading this will be somewhat familiar with the brand. ��

This is the 6th generation iPod Classic with 80 GB of storage, being first sold on September 5th, 2007. The iPod line was introduced on November 10, 2001, with the product line becoming known as the iPod Classic and the extension into new lines, such as the iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch. Although not the first portable digital music player, the distinctive marketing, design and associated software made the product stand out from the crowd. The marketing of iPods, via the use of dancing were once synonymous with the brand, and a form of popular print advertising. Apple even made for the AirPods in 2022. Prior to the introduction of the iPhone and other smartphones into the market in 2007, iPods had a 68% market share on portable music players. Unfortunately, this new technology quickly devalued the convenience of iPods and by 2010 sales were overtaken by the iPhone. The product line of iPod Classics was discontinued on September 9, 2014, with the iPod Touch being the last new generation from the line in 2019, before the product family was discontinued in May 2022.�� With over 20 years of production, the iPod family is the longest running line Apple has retired.

The company itself began in April 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak with the development of the Apple I, which later became the Apple II. This was a notable technological change in terms of bringing computers with colour graphics into the home. This boom in sales carried over into 1980, with $117 million in sales and the company making the decision to be publicly traded. The 80s saw both founders leaving the company, and a change of priorities within the company. By 1996, after a series of poor marketing decisions, many speculators predicted Apple’s doom. This led to the board of directors asking for Steve Jobs to return as interim CEO in 1997, before he became the official CEO in 2000. Through the 90s, Apple made a licensing agreement to use Microsoft’s software, and introduced several successful product line, (the iBook, iPod, and Macbook). Though the greatest success, both in popularity and revenue, has been the iPhone. With a 15.6% marketshare on mobile phones in Q1 of 2022, Apple has consistently been one of the top three phone providers.��

On loan from Emily Hotton