- You know what's great?
- What's great, Matt?
- Technology.
- Nah, it's terrible.
- Terrible, but I mean,
that's kinda how you
built your entire career.
- Stone Ages is where it's at.
Polio, man, big fan.
- Speaking of the Stone Ages,
did you know that a lot of the technology
that you are using is actually
way older than you think?
- No, I didn't know that.
So, what exactly is the plan today?
You said that there's
a game of some variety.
- Yes, I'm gonna give you
some pieces of technology
that are super common today
that you probably think
are maybe 10 years old.
- But I'm going to be
mistaken, is my guess.
- And, for every time you are mistaken,
Ken gets an additional $500.
- 500, wait, no no.
- For the Mystery Tech budget.
- Why 500?
How many questions are there?
- There are three.
- $500?
- Yes.
- But you're just gonna
throw trick questions at me
'cause you just want a
better Mystery Tech budget.
- [Ken] I mean, thank you?
(Matt and Austin laughing)
- All right, so the
way I have it laid out,
I'm gonna give you three
pieces of technology
and you'll have multiple choice.
You have to pick the decade
that this piece of
technology was invented.
- So, do I get a shenanigans vote
if you try to say that
something is wildly off
or I don't agree with it?
Is there some--
- No, because I, no.
No, because I'm the mediator,
I'm the one who's done the research.
- Well what if you're wrong, Matt?
You're just trying to say,
"Oh, I'm the mediator, I'm
the boss, I'm the judge,
"I'm the jury, and I'm the executioner."
- [Matt] Yeah, that's pretty
much exactly what I'm saying.
- But I'm the one who has to pay
for the Mystery Tech budget.
- Yeah, that's why it's
fun for us and not for you.
And so, I've, like a good
host, set Austin up to fail.
- All right, so let's play
whatever this game is called,
starting with question number one.
- When do you think in-car
navigation first was a thing?
- Can I get some more
specificity on the question?
Are we saying GPS navigation?
Are we saying grandma with a map
in the back seat navigation?
What do you mean by that?
- Something that's
built into your vehicle.
Is it A, the 1990s, B,
the 1930s, C, the 1910s,
or D, the 19...
- (laughs) You don't
even have it memorized.
- [Matt] '60s?
(bell dings)
- Okay, well I'm gonna
guess it's not the '60s
since you forgot that one.
Or no, maybe it is the 1960s.
I'm just trying to play
mind games right now.
- I just couldn't remember which one
I actually already said.
- Oh, okay.
I'm gonna say the '10s are
probably out because basically,
no one had cars back then.
My inclination is to say the 1960s
because that was an era in which there was
a lot of really weird mechanical stuff,
like all kinds of things in cars
where we have a lot of
the modern conveniences,
but it was done in a very
old school way of ratchets,
and clanks, and I actually don't know
what I'm talking about,
but there's a lot of weird stuff there.
However, I think that
you're about to pull out
something really weird.
I'm gonna guess the 1930s, final answer.
- Final answer is 1930s?
- Yeah.
- You are actually correct.
- Yes!
- I am really upset by this.
1930s is the one I thought you might get
because you're a car guy.
So, these numbers were
not just random numbers
I threw at a dart board.
In 1910, they did actually
have an integrated system.
The Baldwin Auto Guide, which
was based off of Kodak film,
and it attached to the steering column,
and it was a map inside with
directions to different things.
- Whoa!
- So, you turned left,
you had to turn the directions then.
So, the 1930s was from an Italian company.
- Oh, that looks real.
- It is real. (Austin laughs)
It was the Iter Avto.
And so, it would have
- What?
- the map here, and as you're going,
it included some gas stations,
some restaurants, some hotels.
You got Ken's Hotel, you got
Austin's Barbecue, Jimmy's Gas.
You loaded these guys
up in this cartridge,
but it connected to the speedometer,
and it would scroll
proportionately as you're driving.
- What I love about this era is that
before there was digital anything,
you had to be so old school mechanical,
and there was so many
weird, so many interesting,
so many ingenious approaches
to delivering this kind of tech,
because you couldn't
just throw in a screen
and a chip or whatever,
you had to actually develop
the pieces of paper,
and the winding mechanism,
and the cartridges.
It is so cool, but the most
important thing is, I was right.
- I'm impressed that
you got the first one.
- I'm not gonna get cocky
here, but I'm feeling good.
- You do, generally,
get really cocky.
- I do.
You know that about me, which is, I think,
part of the reason why you're gonna try
to trick me with these things.
You're gonna make
something really obvious,
and I'm gonna be glued to it.
See, I remember when we did
the hidden camera thing,
and you tricked me like that.
I can learn.
- So, Spotify, you'd say is,
oh, 2011 is when it started,
but when do you think streaming music
actually became a thing?
- Okay, I'm gonna need way
more specificity on this one.
When you say streaming music,
we're not talking a radio.
- No, well, I'm gonna say
music that you don't own,
that you don't have physically,
that you hear on demand.
- So, if I wanna listen
to my Justin Bieber song,
I can use this service,
in whatever decade it is,
to listen to that song
pretty much instantly.
- Not quite that cut and dry, but yes.
- There's no physical media
involved though, right?
It's not a mail service
where they're sending
me records or something.
- Correct, it's not a mail service.
So is it A, 1900s, B, 1980s,
C, 1880s, or D, 1920s?
- Okay, it's not the 1980s
because knowing the way that
you're doing research on this,
it's not gonna be something normal.
It's gonna be something weird.
It's gonna be like you get it
through the telegraph or something.
You hook up your telegraph
machine and it goes like,
♪ Click, click, click, click, click ♪
♪ Click, click, click, click, click ♪
♪ Click, click, click, click ♪
- Are you saying they streamed
Morse code to you in music?
- Yes, I wouldn't put it past you
to pull something like that,
so I'm gonna throw 1980s out.
- Okay.
The 1880s feels too old,
because the fact that you
could even record music
was something that if I recall right,
only really became particularly
popular and relevant
in that sort of decade.
Well, I guess the mid 1880s
or so, something like that.
It wasn't very common to record music.
It's possible, but recording and streaming
feels like a little bit much.
So, through my powers of deduction,
I'm going to guess either
the 1900s or the 1920s.
I'm going to guess the
1900s, final answer.
- No!
- Did I get it right?
- No!
- Yes, I got it right?
- Yes.
- Yes!
- [Matt] You're two for
two, I'm disappointed.
- Wait, can you explain to me,
what exactly could you
do in the 19 whatevers.
- So, you were wrong about the 1880s.
So, the device that this guy built,
he started designing it in the 1880s
and started building it in the late 1890s,
and then finished in, I
think, 1902, sorry, 1901.
- Okay, just in sight.
- And it was Thaddeus Cahill
- That's a great name
- who built the,
I can't even pronounce it,
it's just one of these old-timey
words, the telharmonium.
- The telharmonium?
- T-E-L harmonium.
- Thanks for spelling it for me.
- Yeah.
- What exactly
did this thing do?
- So, the telharmonium was an organ
that converted the music
into electrical signals,
and then those electrical signals
go through wires and
everything into a paper cone,
so one of the first loudspeakers.
And then that loudspeaker, basically,
was playing into a telephone,
and that was being
broadcasted, technically,
even though it's all just
one big telephone system,
to restaurants, and hotels, and
even homes around Manhattan.
The organ itself was in the
main area of a concert hall,
and then the actual device itself,
and there's the organ right there.
So it was a 150 key organ.
Now, you could actually call in
and request songs to be played.
The reason this didn't take off.
- (laughs) Oh, okay, go ahead.
- Again, this is super groundbreaking.
- Groundbreaking 'cause
it weighs 800 tons.
- It literally was groundbreaking.
It took up the entire basement of this,
- (laughs) Yeah.
- of this concert hall.
And this was before electrical
vacuum tubes were invented,
so they used these massive
electrical dynamos,
which required about the equivalent power
of an entire home to run per hour.
- All right.
- Next item.
- I'm hoping to stump you with this one.
- This is the third and final question.
What's your confidence
level right now, Matt?
Do you think you're gonna stump me,
or am I gonna go three for three?
- I think I am gonna stump you.
- Shoot your shot, my friend.
I'm feeling pretty confident right now.
- When do you think downloading games?
- Oh, Matthew Ansini,
this is a topic I know a
thing or two about, go ahead.
- [Matt] When do you
think downloading games
was first invented?
Was it A, 1960s, 1970s,
1980s, or the 1990s.
- Okay, so I know that both the Genesis,
as well as, I believe, the Super Nintendo
had a modem component where you actually,
specifically in Japan, you
could download games to them,
and I believe that was either
late '80s or early '90s,
but I'm assuming we're
talking older than that.
I'm throwing out 1990s for sure,
and I'm still gonna throw out 1960s.
You might throw me a
curveball with some weird,
old military program that
they downloaded or something.
I don't think so.
- WarGames, it's a great movie.
- I feel pretty confident that
there was some weird thing
in the '80s that you
could stream games from.
I'm gonna say the 1970s.
Ah, oh!
- You're wrong!
- [Ken] Yes.
- When was it?
- You talked yourself out of it.
It was in the 1980s.
- Really?
(Austin groans)
But I thought that the...
- 1981, the Mattel Intellivision.
- [Austin] It was the Intellivision,
it was '81?
- '81.
- I thought the
Intellivision was like '79.
- [Matt] Maybe in development.
- No, man I was so close!
(Matt laughs)
It was the one I should have known!
Wait, so it was, yeah,
it was some attachment for
the Intellivision, right?
- It was the PlayCable,
and it wasn't a modem,
it was a cartridge that
you rented from Mattel.
It was $12 a month, so half
the cost of a regular game,
and it plugged in via coax cable.
- Oh, okay.
- Not a modem.
- Yup, yup.
- And you could,
in theory, download any of
their games to the cartridge.
Now, it was a super cool concept,
because you had access
to their major titles,
like Frogger, and Pitfall,
and I can't believe that those are,
I'm saying those are A-list titles.
It was significantly cheaper,
and basically you just
rewrote over the cartridge
every time you download the game.
They even got Mickey Mantle to come on
and do a whole series of commercials.
- The Intellivision was big.
- Yeah, it was huge.
- This is a really well thought-out game.
I'm still happy with two out of three,
especially considering
that two out of three
were definitely guesses,
and only one of them I felt confident in,
and I was wrong about that
one, so congratulations.
- So, what I figured out for next time is
I need to make these way harder,
- No, no, no, no, it's fine.
- and pinpoint the year
- No, how dare you?
- instead of the decade.
How dare you?
I'm never gonna get the,
it's just gonna be a
one out of four chance,
'cause I'm just gonna guess.
The decade is the way we should this.
- Okay, so if you have a challenge
you think I should issue Austin,
let me know in the comments.
And I'm gonna say well done.
- Thank you.
- And I'm looking forward to
this extra $500 for Mystery Tech.
- Look, it could have
been a whole lot worse,
a whole lot worse.
- It will be next time.
