In 1925 Hugo Gernsback envisioned a culture 50 years hence where everyone had a hi-fi, radio and tv set. Intrigued by the shape of things to come, he coined the phrase science fiction for which he’s remembered annually as the namesake of sci-fi’s Pulitzer, the Hugo Award.

I introduce you to Hugo Gernsback because he’s the Jules Verne of that peculiar literature which reports from the twilight zone of consumer electronics where fantasy turns fact.

Gernsback lived in constant anticipation of media futures, publishing the fantastic Science and Invention magazine in the ’20s and the precipitous Shortwave and Television magazine in the ’30s. Several issues of the latter provide exact schematics to build a tv set at home in your spare time—this in 1932. Gernsback made social demands on laboratory experiments; the moment principles were found he postulated practical applications. A subscription to whatever magazine he was publishing at the moment (they went out of business with unfortunate regularity) guaranteed that when it came to electric toys you’d be 10 to 20 years ahead of everyone else on your block.