The technological surge inspired by NASA and the Japanese has ended. There aren’t going to be any more new toys. Consumers can’t afford new gizmos and manufacturers haven’t the money for further research and development. Consumer technology has stopped leaping and bounding. It ended two years ago with video portapaks, quadrophonic sound, pocket calculators, and Sony starting to make deliveries on the first home tv projector^.

Out of the fat times came very important innovations. Thumb-nail sized large-scale integrated circuits, called chips, were mass-produced to introduce consumer computer technology. Electronically controlled logic improved the reliability and convenience of leisure, like watching tv; helped make technics universal, like personal video and four channel sound; and advanced machines as electric aids, like pocket calculators and digital timepieces.

CBS Radio reported on President Ford’s income tax rebate plan after his chat with us from the White House Library. They did a quick survey of citizen reaction. One interview was with a Mississippi bottom-lands farmer who’d watched Ford’s spiel on tv, his pocket calculator in hand. “I don’t know about getting a thousand dollars back. The way I figure it, I’ll get $5.32 back in May and another $5.32 by September.”