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Open a navigation app, send an email, connect a laptop to a wired network, or use a phone powered by a rechargeable battery and you are relying on technologies whose foundations were built in the 1970s. The hardware and services have changed dramatically, but several core ideas from that decade remain active.
The most recognizable examples are GPS, email, TCP/IP networking, Ethernet, and microprocessors. Battery history belongs on the list with an important qualification: 1970s lithium-battery research helped lead to modern lithium-ion cells, but today’s lithium-ion battery was not a finished 1970s invention.
What “still used” means for 1970s inventions
An invention can survive without its original hardware surviving. A protocol may continue underneath newer software; a design concept may be rebuilt into smaller, faster chips; and a research program may eventually produce a commercial product decades later. That is why a smartphone does not contain 1970s GPS hardware, and a modern laptop does not use an Intel 4004 processor, yet both depend on technological lineages that began in that period.
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| Technology | 1970s milestone | Everyday form today |
|---|---|---|
| GPS | Modern program organized in 1973; first NAVSTAR GPS satellite launched in 1977 | Phone navigation, location services, surveying, aviation and other positioning applications |
| Ray Tomlinson sent an early email in 1971 and used the @ symbol to separate user and destination | Personal, business and automated internet communication | |
| TCP/IP | Protocols took shape during the 1970s as a way to interconnect computer networks | Core communication layer of the internet and private networks |
| Ethernet | Local-area networking technology developed during the 1970s | Wired connections in homes, offices, data centers and industrial systems |
| Microprocessors | Intel 4004 released in 1971 as the first general microprocessor | Central processing and control in computers, phones, appliances, vehicles and embedded devices |
| Lithium-battery research | Research into rechargeable lithium-based batteries advanced during the 1970s | Lithium-ion batteries in phones, laptops, power tools and electric vehicles |
GPS: from a 1970s satellite program to phone navigation
GPS is one of the clearest examples of a 1970s invention that became ordinary only much later. The U.S. Department of Defense called for a joint GPS program office in 1973, marking the beginning of the system’s modern form. The Office of Naval Research timeline records the launch of Navigation Technology Satellite II in 1977 as the first satellite in the NAVSTAR GPS program. These milestones describe a long development path, not a navigation app that already existed on 1970s phones.
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Early GPS was a military and research effort based on satellites, precise timing and receivers capable of interpreting signals. Over subsequent decades, satellites, ground infrastructure, receiver electronics and software improved. DARPA’s history of miniaturized GPS receivers documents the push to make receivers smaller and practical for more devices.
Where GPS appears now
- Smartphone navigation: Mapping apps use satellite positioning, often combined with cellular, Wi-Fi and device sensors, to show a moving position and calculate routes.
- Location services: Phones can attach a location to photos, searches, emergency calls, deliveries and other services.
- Surveying: Professional receivers use satellite positioning for measurements and mapping.
- Aviation and air-traffic applications: Position and timing information support navigation-related operations.
- Harbor and ocean uses: The Office of Naval Research lists harbor navigation and ocean-wave measurement among peacetime applications.
The historical continuity is therefore the satellite-navigation system and its method of determining position and time. A modern receiver may be a tiny component inside a phone and may use additional satellite constellations and sensors, but it descends from the program organized in the 1970s.
The Office of Naval Research timeline is available at ONR’s 1970–1980 history. The U.S. Department of State also summarizes the program’s development and civilian reach in its American Innovations overview.
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Email and TCP/IP: the visible service and the hidden network
Email began as a network message, not a modern inbox
Ray Tomlinson sent an early email in 1971. The State Department account credits him with first using the @ symbol to separate the recipient’s name from the destination computer or system. That notation became the recognizable structure of an email address.
Today’s email includes web interfaces, mobile apps, spam filtering, encryption options, attachments, calendars and automated notifications. Those features were added later, but the basic activity remains the same: one system addresses a message to a recipient on another system and delivers it through interconnected networks.
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Email is a user-facing invention, so its 1970s origin is easy to notice. You see the address, compose the message and receive a reply. The infrastructure that moves the message is less visible.
TCP/IP is the infrastructure underneath internet communication
TCP/IP refers to a family of networking protocols that took shape during the 1970s. The State Department describes it as the backbone for connecting computer networks. Instead of requiring every computer to belong to one giant network, the protocols provide common rules that let separate networks exchange data.
Modern web pages, cloud applications, messaging services, software updates and email systems all rely on networks using internet protocols. The applications have changed repeatedly, while the basic networking foundation continues to provide addressing, delivery and communication between systems.
This distinction helps explain why email and TCP/IP should be listed separately. Email is a service people use directly; TCP/IP is a set of rules that allows many services to communicate. The historical account of both technologies appears in the State Department’s American Innovations overview.
Ethernet and microprocessors: the computer technologies beneath daily devices
Ethernet keeps wired networking relevant
Ethernet was developed as a local-area networking technology in the 1970s. It connects devices within a limited area such as a home, office, laboratory, factory or data center. A typical wired connection uses an Ethernet cable and network hardware such as a switch or router.
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Wireless networking is convenient, but Ethernet remains useful when a connection needs predictable performance, low latency, power delivery, physical security or resistance to radio interference. Desktop computers, access points, servers, network storage, game systems, cameras and industrial equipment may still use it.
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Microprocessors put computing on a chip
The Computer History Museum identifies Intel’s 4004, released in 1971, as the first general microprocessor and describes it as a “computer on a chip.” Its importance was not that later devices continued to use the exact 4004. The lasting invention was the integrated microprocessor approach: placing the central processing functions of a computer into a compact, mass-produced chip.
That approach enabled successive generations of processors with more transistors, wider data paths, larger memories, faster operating speeds and specialized functions. A modern smartphone may contain several types of processors for general computing, graphics, communications, imaging and machine-learning tasks. Cars, appliances, medical equipment, toys and industrial controllers also use microprocessors or closely related microcontrollers.
In practical terms, the microprocessor is the reason computing can be embedded into objects that are not marketed as computers. A thermostat can measure temperature and control heating; a washing machine can run programmed cycles; a camera can process images; and a phone can execute navigation and communication software. All are descendants of the “computer on a chip” concept described in the Computer History Museum’s account.
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Lithium-battery research: an important 1970s contribution, not a finished product
Battery history needs more care than the other examples. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory says it was among the first research institutions to investigate lithium-based rechargeable batteries in the 1970s and that this work informed the later commercial development of lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion cells are now common in phones, laptops, power tools and electric vehicles.
It would be inaccurate to say that the modern lithium-ion battery was simply invented in the 1970s and then placed unchanged into today’s products. The decade contributed research and materials knowledge; commercial cells, manufacturing methods, safety systems and product designs developed later.
Do not confuse lithium-ion research with the pacemaker battery
The Central Intelligence Agency describes a separate lithium-iodine battery developed by CIA researchers in the 1960s. The technology was passed to the medical community in the early 1970s for use in pacemakers. Lithium-iodine pacemaker batteries and rechargeable lithium-ion batteries have different chemistries, purposes and development histories.
The accurate connection is therefore: 1970s work on rechargeable lithium-based batteries helped inform the later lithium-ion products used in portable electronics and vehicles, while the pacemaker battery represents a separate 1960s development that reached medical applications in the 1970s. The two histories are documented by the Naval Research Laboratory and the CIA’s technology history.
Precision timekeeping helped make satellite navigation possible
GPS depends on extremely precise timing because receivers determine location from the travel time of signals. That does not mean the accuracy of an atomic clock is the same thing as the accuracy of a phone’s position.
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The National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, reported that its NBS-6 atomic clock had enough accuracy and stability in 1975 to “neither gain nor lose a second in 400,000 years.” This is a dated example of precision timekeeping relevant to the kind of timing infrastructure used in satellite navigation. It should not be presented as a claim that GPS positioning itself is accurate to one second in 400,000 years.
NIST’s history is available in A Brief History of Atomic Time.
How these inventions changed while remaining useful
The examples fall into three useful categories:
- Visible services: Email and phone navigation are things people deliberately open and use. Their interfaces and features have changed, but their basic purposes remain recognizable.
- Hidden infrastructure: TCP/IP and microprocessors operate behind applications and devices. Most users do not see the protocols or chips, yet everyday digital functions depend on them.
- Long research-to-product paths: GPS and rechargeable lithium-battery technology show how a program or laboratory result can take decades to become an ordinary consumer capability.
The original inventions also came from different settings. GPS grew from a military satellite-navigation program; networking and microprocessor work developed within computer research and industry; and lithium-battery advances emerged from laboratory research before reaching mass-market products. Their common feature is not a single inventor or unchanged component, but a foundation that proved adaptable.
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Where you can recognize the 1970s legacy today
Use this quick checklist when identifying the technology in your own routine:
- Following a route on a phone: GPS-derived satellite positioning, combined with modern maps and sensors.
- Typing an address containing
@: the addressing convention associated with Tomlinson’s 1971 email work. - Sending data between separate networks: TCP/IP protocols developed during the 1970s.
- Plugging a computer or television into a router: Ethernet’s continuing wired local-network role.
- Running an app, appliance program or vehicle control system: a modern descendant of the microprocessor approach.
- Charging a phone or laptop: a later commercial lithium-ion product informed by earlier lithium-based rechargeable-battery research.
The lasting lesson
1970s inventions remain in everyday technology mainly as adaptable foundations. GPS became a global positioning service rather than a military-only satellite program; email became a worldwide communication system; TCP/IP expanded from network research into the internet; Ethernet continued beside wireless links; and microprocessors moved computing into nearly every category of device. Battery research from the decade contributed to later rechargeable products without making the decade the birth date of modern lithium-ion batteries.
This is a representative list, not a complete catalogue of every technology introduced during the 1970s. It focuses on systems whose descendants are especially easy to encounter in phones, computers, networks and navigation.
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