Meanwhile every time I put a new kind of bread / bagel / muffin in my toaster, it comes out unsatisfyingly burnt or underdone as is the particular setting of the day. See, the objects I insert into the toaster almost _never_ resemble the model bread that the EE designed for.
If the toaster had a shade selector, a built in camera and was factory color calibrated, then no matter what I stuck in the toaster it would come out that color (or hit some global MAX_TOASTING_TIME) .
Good software engineers design robustly without increasing the problem domain (much).
In this case, it was unlearned for a very good reason. The hexavalent chromium plating on those toasters is a genotoxic carcinogen. The metal body gets dangerously hot during toasting. The internal metal wires are not safe and will electrocute children who poke metal inside. The mechanical temperature control and automatic toast ejection were complicated and extremely expensive, making it unaffordable for most.
* Twee nostalgia for technology of yester-year annoys me; I feel the same way about people who preach about the technical superiority of safety razors and vinyl records.
Personally, I'm happy to trade the mild cancer risk for aesthetics. I just don't make a habit of taking a grinder to my toaster and sprinkling the shavings on my toast.
As for the body, I can report that as of this morning it's within the thermal range of a full-load MBP.
I see the shock hazard as a learning opportunity. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but "Don't stick fingers / metal objects into the internals of electrical devices" seems like solid life wisdom.
Thankfully, I was shielded from the price, but quality costs money. In return, you get a lifetime (or more) of service. You may optimize differently.
And as a final note, there is no toast "ejection." To do so with such violence would be crass and disruptive to my morning calm.
My toast instead gently and incrementally rises to a comfortable removal height, while a chorus of angels sings in the background. Truly an elegant toast maker, from a more civilized age. /Twee
PS: I'm also happy to wax on the benefits of my daily driver 1940s Gillette Super Speed safety razor.
Even if none of these things matter to you, how about the fact that the mechanical control would not be easily adapted to handle variable width bread without much more expense?
Who wants a toaster that can't handle thick cut bread or bagels in the 21st century?
And it's not just California. You couldn't get UL approval for such a toaster today, so it would not be sold anywhere.
These old toasters cost the equivalent of $235 in today's dollars. (~$23 in 1949) Of course if you buy a $200 toaster today, it would be a marvel of technology. Nobody buys $200 toasters though, you can get a crappy one for $15 and that's what people buy, so any comparisons between today and yesterday are unfair. Compare like price with like price.
Google "toaster dualit". You will find chrome, dangerously hot toasters for hundreds of dollars. It's up to you to figure out how to electrocute yourself, but I don't see why a little ingenuity wouldn't suffice.
I don't think they have the features of the Sunbeam though. If there is a model that does, I'd like to know about it since it sounds brilliant.
> "If the toaster had a shade selector, a built in camera and was factory color calibrated, then no matter what I stuck in the toaster it would come out that color (or hit some global MAX_TOASTING_TIME) ."
...which would fail on dark breads like pumpernickel or be confused by marbled or cinnamon swirl breads.
I think this points out the challenges of "Just make me a simple X" that business and product folks always initiate with, hoping to get the cheapest solution.
Then they wonder why it fails in every way except the ones they explicitly said during design/coding and why there is a long tail of updates that often exceed the MVP...
How do you determine whether the object being toasted has reached equilibrium from radiated heat measurements which are from the surface of the object?
What is needed is a detector for the flavor agents given off by the Maillard reaction.
If I don't know the proper time in the microwave to heat a dish, I just let it run until it starts to smell right. The same strategy should work for toast.
If the toaster had a shade selector, a built in camera and was factory color calibrated, then no matter what I stuck in the toaster it would come out that color (or hit some global MAX_TOASTING_TIME) .
Good software engineers design robustly without increasing the problem domain (much).