"Johnny’s Mic", the Shure microphone that sat on the
desk of Johnny Carson during "The Tonight Show"
from 1962 to the early 1980’s.
The mic was sold at a Heritage Galleries auction in
Dallas in 2005 for over $50,000 to an anonymous
collector, and it’s likely still in a private collection,
making it a prized piece of television history rather
than being publicly displayed.
AUGUST/1991
Peterson opened his first store in 1964, which grew to a regional consumer electronics, home appliance, and furniture chain in the
1970s.
In the mid-2000s, the Petersons sold their last remaining property
at the corner of Southeast 82nd and Foster and moved the store
to a side street a block away, just off 82nd Avenue. The final
location closed on February 28, 2009.
The former Tom Peterson’s store at the corner of SE 82nd
and Foster.
Thomas Howard Peterson (February 23, 1930 – July 25, 2016)
Sign outside last Tom Peterson’s location in late 2008.
The metal-cased blue-and-silver Walkman TPS-L2, the world’s first
low-cost personal stereo, went on sale in Japan on July 1, 1979,
and was sold for around $150.00.
Though Sony predicted it would sell about 5,000 units a month, it
sold more than 30,000 in the first two months. It would spark a
revolution in portable electronics.
On January 9, 2007, Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs unveils the
iPhone—a touchscreen mobile phone with an iPod, camera
and Web-browsing capabilities, among other features—at
the Macworld convention in San Francisco.
Jobs, dressed in his jeans and black mock turtleneck, called
the iPhone a “revolutionary and magical product that is literally
five years ahead of any other mobile phone.”
When it went on sale in the United States six months later, on
June 29, amidst huge hype, thousands of customers lined up
at Apple stores across the country to be among the first to
purchase an iPhone.
In November 2007, by which point more than 1.4 million
iPhones had been sold—Time magazine named the sleek,
4.8-ounce device, originally available in a 4GB, $499 model
and an 8GB, $599 model, its invention of the year.
