The "black box" started with the 1950s equivalent (Score 1)

That's quite appropriate, since the original invention of the black box was prompted by the "iPod" of the 1950s, a music recording/playing device called a "miniphon", which recorded on metal wire (not magnetic tape). An Australian chemist named David Warren was at a meeting investigating the Comet jet airliner crashes. He was sitting there half listening to other experts give their various theories for what had caused the crash, and half thinking about a jazz concert he was going to record that night, and someone suggested a hijacking. And he thought "pity no-one had one of these recorders there in the cockpit, or we'd know". That's what sparked off the idea which eventually resulted in the development of the black box. The first prototype model made was actually two of these miniphon recorders arranged so that as one finished its metal reel it would start recording on the second in an infinite loop. The wikipedia entry for the black box has some of the links.