You Had Me At “Bacon”

Our next door neighbor was one of the 1st to have one of these installed in their home. They invited us over for a chicken dinner (supper) one evening and proudly presented us with a raw looking dead chicken on a platter. The "browning" option hadn't been invented yet!

yuck, the first versions of new tech are never the ones you want to buy. let the bugs get worked out on some impatient, rich guy's dime. wonder how much radiation those first modern convienences put off.

i thought it was that something that cost $500 then costs $5000 now. oh and I paid $499+tax for a (big) microwave for my mom in 1984 form JCPennys.

Now you can get a good one for 80 bucks. Btw, Patty, microwave ovens do not give off nuclear radiation(despite the popular phrasing, to "nuke" something). They are actually soundwaves. But the radiated wavelengths can interfere with such delicate instruments such as heart pacemakers. Newer ones don't even do that. Microwave communications were the military state-of-the-art in the '80's, but now obsolete, also. Buddies of mine used to cook hotdogs on sticks in front of the transmitting dishes on the towers a hundred feet up. 😝

an unqualified economist and patty are right. I meant the equivalent of $5,000 2011 dollars. I've noticed that to figure out how much something was really worth in the 1950s or 1960s, just add a zero. For example, the average family car was $2,000 to $3,000 back then, $20,000 to $30,000 today, so it goes to reason that a $545 microwave is equal to $5,000 today.

pretty neat story dan. wonder how many of those guys have significant health problems from beinb around those waves though. i mean, it would have certainly had some effect, we are made of meat too basically. how long were the sticks?

None of them, patty. Microvave dish shots were directed beams, so if you were dumb enough to stand in front of it, it would cook you, but otherwise not. Of course, the transmitting cones extended out about four feet, so if you tried to place yourself in front of it, gravity would have a much more detrimental effect!

for some reason bruce, your story makes me think of the bugs bunny cartoon type factory automated line. bacon comes out of microwave on conveyor and goes through a series of big hammers crushing it to bits. :lol:

i can see that now - in one end goes whole, squealing pig. Out the other end comes precooked hams, bacon, sausage, ham hocks, pig's feet and sow's ear purses, then come hammers for bacon bits and circular saws for spiraled hams. :cheese: