The Honeywell Kitchen Computer - The $85,000 Gadget No One Ever Bought

John Summers • Contributor

Sep 16, 2025 3:00 PM EDT

I love kitchen gadgets, but nothing in my kitchen is built like the Honeywell Kitchen Computer. Introduced in 1969, this towering pedestal-computer was sold in a Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog with promises of computing your recipes, balancing the family checkbook, and delivering Jetsons-level glory. For a cool $10,600. Yes, in 1969. (That's about $85,000 in today's money!)

Inside this beauty was a Honeywell H316 minicomputer: magnetic-core memory, toggle switches, flashing lights - no sleek touchscreen, no "just search Google." You were expected to learn a two-week course just to be able to tell it what to cook. The user interface essentially required speaking to lights and switches. The cutting board was built in, the cookbook and apron were bundled, and it was all about domestic futurism.

The kicker? As far as anyone can tell, not a single Kitchen Computer was sold through that catalog. It left a handful of pedestal "floor models," one extant version at the Computer History Museum, and a lot of dreams of what "home computing" could become. These 32 photos are reminders of when the future seemed magical, absurd, promising — and wildly impractical.