Happy 55th birthday to cooking with radio

[pokerfan]

Early in World War II, physicists invented the magnetron, an electron tube that could generate microwaves and improve the capability of British radar systems to spot Nazi warplanes.

Raytheon engineer Percy LeBaron Spencer was working on an active radar set a few years later when it accidentally melted a candy bar in his pocket. He figured microwaves could cook food. Spencer then tried popping popcorn and making an egg using microwaves.

Raytheon had filed a patent for the microwave cooking process by 1945. Two years later, it built Radarange, the first microwave oven in the world.

The Radarange was as large as a refrigerator, but heavier. The tubes in the magnetron had to be water-cooled, so plumbing installation was required. Result: The first microwave oven weighed about 750 pounds and was nearly 6 feet tall.

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/10/1025home-microwave-ovens

The original Radarange:

[Kali]

1. that is pretty cool looking - I wonder if it was a combo unit?

electric and microwave?

[pokerfan]

2. probably unlikely back then

The presence of conductive heating elements would tend to interfere with the microwaves so it would have presented an unnecessary design requirement. I suspect it was enough of a challenge just to package it into something the size of a cabinet.

[Swede]

3. That pic reminds of the one of the the 5MB harddrive in 1956.

Wonder what wonders they'll have in 50 years?

[pokerfan]

4. that's a great pic

5,000,000 bytes of data in that little thing? Amazing!

A glimpse of the astounding world of the future:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJjUVIIYptE