Regency TR1 First Pocket Radio by Mark Richards

The-morning-after-a-confabulous-evening greetings collector friends! It's been a whirlwind visit in SF this week. I'm still slightly delirious after last night's shindig at Chronicle Books which was followed by a delish dinner at Globe with the 20x200 crew—all topped off by this morning's presentation at Web 2.0. Whew! But it's not over yet. This afternoon's plans include some art seeing and a much-anticipated studio visit with Ms. Jessica Snow. I missed Jessica the last time I breezed through the Bay Area—not having enough hours in the day to catch up with all of the wonderful people we work with at JBP is a perpetual problem. In the whirl of seeing friends old and new last night, today's edition-maker, Mark Richards, came and went before we too could properly say hello!

Had we had a moment, we could have toasted the one-year anniversary of Mark's first editions. The timing of today's edition, Regency TR1 First Pocket Radio, is no coincidence, just about twelve months after we offered up Apple 1 and IBM 360 Model 30 Tape Drives 1965.

So here we are again, looking back at how far we've come since then—and farther still since the Regency TR-1 was introduced to the world in 1954 with the slogan "The revolution in your pocket." Its remarkably compact design spawned a series of successors all bent on making music portable. After Bell Laboratories brought us the TR-1, Sony followed up with the Walkman, then there was the Discman, and eventually the iPod. "1,000 songs in your pocket" was used to promote Apple's first generation of the device. Anyone remember the iPhone's first slogan? "The internet in your pocket." Who woulda thought that things would go so far beyond revolutionary!?

I'll leave you here to examine the innards of this technological wonder of yore as I'm still moving full speed ahead with today's agenda. If you're obsessed with this kind of wondrous gadgetry, I'd suggest Mark's book, Core Memory, beautifully published by, you guessed it, Chronicle Books. Enjoy the weekend but be on your toes; next week, in honor of NYPH, we'll be releasing an ethereal image from an acclaimed photographer, much beloved by the people of the Bay Area and so adored by the photo community that it's nearly impossible to collect even his books. I'm not one to sit on a secret for long so stay tuned for hints, here and there!