zlacker

I lived through the era of the kitchen computers. I cannot prove it but I think this happened through a consumer focus group. In the sixties and seventies marketers loved consumer focus groups. They would always ask a couple off the wall questions. Like asking people if you had a computer in your house what would you imagine using it for and which room would it be in?

As a child in the sixties the only computers we saw on TV were either robots or the Jetsons kitchen computer. So this group decides that the kitchen computer is it. The Jetson's 'kitchen computer' would assemble and cook a complete meal from molecules. Similar to what Cana is doing for beverages.

https://www.cana.com/

So it became a fact that consumers wanted kitchen computers. Over a twenty year period multiple company's (mostly big stodgy companies wanting to get in on the hot new computer thing) brought out kitchen computers. I remember software companies for the TRS-80, Apple and IBM PC having recipe database programs.

They all were complete failures. People didn't want kitchen computers. What they wanted was to tell a machine what they wanted for dinner and it would build and cook it. As long as you kept the machine full of water and different molecules it would make Chicken Cordon Bleu one night and Duck a l'Orange the next night Still a neat idea and something I'd like for myself.

>>rmason+(OP)
I grew up in that era too. It was interesting how narrow-minded the marketing was on these things, but we hadn't really explored ideas beyond the things you already did on paper (file recipes, balance checkbooks, track your investments).

Even Apple wasn't immune.

https://www.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/a2origi...

None of this really changed until VisiCalc came along.