Digital Ancestry: an iPad Forerunner

iPad Ancestry, a photo by rsmithing on Flickr.
A while back at a thrift shop I came across this beast of some old technology. I remember in grade school there being several cubbies with these things in them that played cassette tapes while advancing a reel of slide film that was projected on this giant screen. It seemed appropriate to me to capture it using my iPhone with an app that mimics “vintage” photos, Hipstamatic.
I remember sitting in front of these things, having set up a reel of film and listening for the cue on the tape to advance to the next one. I think I even wore headphones. For a young school kid, this was a fairly entertaining, interactive educational experience. And there was a real production value to these – carefully crafted photography and studio-recorded voiceovers.
Can you think of a similarly interactive audio-visual device with a large screen that could be used for education? Seems everywhere I look there’s a new reminder of how today’s tech was preceded by something else. It makes me wonder what we’ll have decades from now that make our iDevices look primitive.

Have you ever seen one of these things or do you remember something similar from your younger days? Or are these still in use? What do you think will surpass today’s tech along these lines? Let us hear from you in the comments!

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