Three excellent graphical recaps of the evolution of gadget design over the years caught my eye recently. There is something compelling about the design of old consumer electronics - it is surprisingly easy to pick the era of an old movie from gadgets alone, quite aside from haircuts or anything else. Just take a look at Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko.

The video below (or here) shows cellphones - from 1985 through to today - morph into one another in chronological order. It’s interesting to see how little the basic design of the things has changed.

But the video’s makers should have properly shown the sizes of the phones shrinking over the years. The 1985 Motorola Dynatac at the start was 33 cm long without its antenna, compared to the 11-cm iPhone at the other end of the timescale. Admittedly, it may have been hard to see the later phones on a small video had they done that, though.

Next up, evolving video-game controllers. Nicholas Nova blogged two attempts (one pictured left, click to enlarge, made by Damian Lopez) to chart the changing shape of console controllers. The other, he notes, is a clickable family tree of controllers with loads of info on each one.

Last of all, BoingBoing has posted a run down of the various attempts to bring exercise and computer gaming together, from some 1989 robotic gloves to the just-released Wii Fit.

Tom Simonite, online technology editor

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