The awards behind the awards: a throwback to the first Products of the Year

In honor of Electronic Products’ 40^th  Product of the Year Awards, let’s take a trip back in time to the beginning, January 1977, when Product of the Year first appeared in Electronic Products Magazine. It was certainly a different world nearly forty years ago. The Electronic Products writers were coming into work and setting up sheets of paper in their electric typewriters, an invention that was already more than 100 years old at the time.  

While that sounds pretty archaic, even then, significant advancements were being made in technology that pioneered the products that are used today.  

Each of the 130 products awarded in the January 1977 issue had appeared in the magazine during the previous 12 months, and were chosen for their groundbreaking innovation, attractive price, or a combination of both. Here are just a few of the Top Products of 1976 that caught the eyes of our senior technical editors:  

• PM3261 120 MHz oscilloscope  (Philips Test & Measuring)  – “Looking at instrumentation shows how far the industry has progressed,” notes Richard Comerford. “The PM3261 cost over $10.5k in 2015 dollars. Today, that kind of bandwidth performance can be had for under $400.”

• CMOS 1802  (RCA/Solid State Div)  – By using what RCA called C² L (Closed CMOS technology) and self-aligned silicon gates, this product was considered both speed- and price-competitive not only with other CMOS devices, but with a broad range of 8-bit NMOS and PMOS devices as well. But as Jim Harrison comments, “The year before, Intel had released their 8085 microprocessor with 5 MHz speed and in the next year, they released the 8086 with a 10, 8, or 5 MHz clock. Both were milestones in processing.”
• Model TD101  (Tele-Dynamics)  – “You might think that the best power supply in 1976 would be a very inferior product in today’s market, but you would be surprised at how well it has stood the test of time,” says Paul O’Shea. “Of course, we don’t have the full data sheet to compare specs like MTBF, operating range, and safety standards met – but what we have shows that it holds up very well to today’s power supplies. The TD101’s physical dimensions are similar to today’s 5-V, 10-A, 50-W supplies. We were impressed that the efficiency of the bygone era supply was 75%, compared to similar units today that have about 82% efficiency. What really makes today’s unit shine is the price – while the TD101 was $240, you can get today’s unit for about $23!”

To read about the 2015 winners — 14 in all — view our special Product of the Year section here.