If one picture is worth a thousand words, a site I've found has dozen of pictures and is worth hundreds of thousands of bon mots. It's called "Rare Historical Photos," so naturally early media was the first thing I thought of searching for.

Luckily, there was no shortage of great items on display. 

One article, titled "Fascinating vintage TV set ads from the 1950s," lists ads from the usual suspects, but also from manufacturers you wouldn't normally associate with making TVs back in the invention's infancy. Here's a sample:

 
 
If that's not enough, there's a story about a store that I never knew existed that was a very early version of Amazon, long before the word computer was even a thing. It was located in Pembroke, Ontario, of all places, and had a TV-like monitor set up where people could come in and browse through hundreds of items, pick the ones they wanted to order and then have them mailed to their homes.

It was considered so innovative, it got a huge spread in Life Magazine, one of the leading publications of the 50s. Amazing that someone thought of this way back when, although the times weren't quite right and it didn't fly. 

Today, using something of the same concept, Jeff Bezos is amongst the richest men in the world. 

Vis-O-Matic, the pre-Internet online shopping store

Finally, this was before my time, but some here may remember vintage "listening booths," in record stores, where you could go in and listen to a song on vinyl before deciding if you wanted to buy it. I'm guessing this was a huge hangouts for teenagers of the time. 

The only place I can remember experiencing this was at the old Kopps Kollectibles on Queen St. W., a vintage record store that sold obscure 45s. It had several turntables with headphones where you could preview a single to make sure it was the right one and that the quality was good.  

Vinyl listening booths to discover new music


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