Re. Atomic Proof: The brochure says they mixed radioactive isotopes with dirt, rubbed the radioactive dirt into the test clothes, and washed in the Bendix and each of however-many competing washers. And then tested with a Geiger counter to see which batches came out with the least amount of radioactivity.
You can imagine the talk at the Bendix lab..
"Hey Chuck, the load from Brand Q is still ticking like crazy. Didn't you say your wife has one of those machines?"
"Yeah, Bob, but since I came to work here I told her we should get one of ours..."
"But the clothes you're wearing were washed in *that other machine* and you're wearing them, right? So then, if that's clean enough for you, put *these* on!"
"Uh, no thanks Chuck, we still want to have another kid..."
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Re. California: It's been a while since we've had water rationing. And some years we have a surplus of water some months and shortages later. So what do you do about that? Have *both* a toploader and a frontloader!
Re. "growing up..." When I was a wee lad, our family had a GE Filter Flo TL, which I fondly remember watching as the lint-balls rolled around the filter during the agitate cycles (I thought it was quite clever that all the "dirt" got trapped in "the round thing" so you could pluck it out at the end!). But I remember once when my mom was visiting a friend with an early FL washer-dryer. I recall watching the suds swooshing around through the port-hole, and at the end, I looked at the open door and saw the rubber boot in there, and the way the glass was supposed to seal to the rubber. For some reason I was immediately skeptical, something along the lines of "you have to squeeze your clothes through this opening" and "what if the water leaks out?" My 4-year-old mind "got" the same "memes" that must have made most grownups in those days prefer TLs: the differences of the FLs were seen as odd. "Now we all know better" and can appreciate each of these designs on its own merits, but I can see how it would have been difficult for some people to switch their frame of reference when FLs were new.
And yet, those early machines were way ahead of their time, as your Bendix brochure proves. And at 295 lbs, with a 525 rpm spin, the Bendix was probably fairly quiet and well-behaved; I can't see it scooting across the floor during spin.
BTW, agreed re. copyrights. Totally out of control. Liberate Mickey Mouse!