I meant that the body styles of those year models was based on the early 70’s body styles. Everything old is new again.
That’s why I mentioned the R1. Until about 1985 or so, motorcycles tended to look pretty much alike. Modern sportbikes have entirely different frames, virtually all are now liquid-cooled, and the bodywork makes them look like they’re speeding when they’re sitting still. But the most incredible thing is that you can just walk into a shop and buy a 381 pound motorcycle with 180 hp. engine. :eek: 
Definitely my cell phone. I am still impressed. I can’t get over the fact that I have this thing in my pocket that I can use as a phone, camera, video player, address book, chat room, calculator, game platform, alarm clock and god knows what else (two days ago, a friend showed me it could be used too as a flash light. I had no idea and had been using this model for more than two years).
I’m just amazed by this thing, even more so since it was developed and improved so quickly. I assume the 1978 visitor would be impressed too.
1978? He would be the one wearing a silver jumpsuit.
I think we’re grossly misunderstanding how modern 1978 was from a tech perspective.
Looking at Broomstick’s list (not to single her out, but she nicely captured in one place what a lot of other people were saying)
I was in college. I had a free-standing PC-like computer on my desk in my room. Which I could attach to a network at the school via a painfully slow modem. I could also attach it to nationwide networks. Google maps did NOT exist yet, but those in the know knew it was coming in some form.
Yes, movie special effects are fancier, but original Star Wars was plenty believable at the time. In many ways the latest effects are less believable beacuse they’re trying too hard to stretch the art. The advancing horde of CGI whatevers still looks very CGI to me.
GPS was up & running for the military & had been for a couple years. Surveyors were starting to use it, although consumers hadn’t really.
MRI & CAT were in the future, but only just. If you were paying attention, you knew that stuff was coming.
I guess if you were a blindered consumer, aware only of what you could buy at Sears, then yes, the progress would seem miraculous.
Most of the consumer tech we have today is stuff that was clearly predictable, if not already in prototype, in 1978. Sure, the future didn’t have to turn out as it did. We might all have been typing our SDMB messages on portable Sinclairs instead of IBM-clones.
I do have to say the mainstream ubuiqity of electronic gizmos has surpirsed me. Not that the devices exist, but that both elderly & young kids have so many & use them. Geekery is no longer just for geeks.
My real surprises are much more on the social / political front. For a quick example, I would not have expected Greenery to take a 20+ year hiatus in the US.
I wouldn’t want to have a conversation with my 1978-self about the Prius. It would go something like this:
“Wow, it runs on batteries, so you can just plug it in at night and go all day?”
Not exactly, plug-in technology isn’t here yet. It has a gasoline engine to help the batteries along."
“Gasoline? But in 1978 we were running out of oil. Did we find a bunch of new oil?”
No, in fact gasoline costs about 4x what we paid for it in 1978.
“So what are we doing? Has everything been converted to nuclear or solar power? Has everyone given up cars for bicycles and public transit?”
There were a couple of unfortunate incidents with nuclear power, so progress on that has stalled. Solar power is still too expensive for most people. We have a lot more windmills, though, and cars get a lot better gas mileage now. There’s more mass transit in major cities. But most people still depend on a car or truck to get around.
“Wow, you guys have really pissed away the last 30 years!”
Murder rate in New York City.
I was in the process of typing AIDS but then realised we’re trying to impress the time traveller, not terrify them.
Assuming they’re gay I’d probably show them gay porn that features attractive men (unlike pretty much everything produced in the 70s - bleurgh!).
No, metal detectors were commonplace by then at airports.
No, go ahead, single me out 
Those in the know. A college student. The typical person in 1978 did NOT know about such things, which was sort of my point (Mind you, I first logged on to a computer in 1976, so perhaps I wasn’t typical, but I didn’t see the PC revolution coming)
Wasn’t thinking about believability - rather the notion that computers would play such a role in mere entertainment. In 1978 computers were for the military or industry or research facilities, not Hollywood.
Again, the average person had not heard of it, or if they had, they hadn’t a clue what it was. I don’t think civil aviation was using it yet at that point, except perhaps the airlines, but I qualify that I don’t know for sure either way.
Most people, however, were not paying attention.
You just described the average American.
I’m not sure they’d be really impressed. I was only 3 in 1978, but by now I thought we’d have flying cars and pills we could take instead of eating food like on the Jetsons.
Well remember, Carter was still President in 1978. The visitor might actually be surprised that gas prices had risen to only $4.00 in 30 years 
I don’t really have anything to add to what’s already been mentioned. But what about what you’d do if all this newfangled stuff overwhelmed our visitor? I know what I’d do: take them to a Seattle Mariners game to show them that some things haven’t changed.
Google Earth.
Show them 21st century porn.
“Yeah, they Really Do shave their hoo-ha’s. No, really. Ron Jeremy has been deposed & is living in Exile and the legendary Big Foot is just a corpse stuffed in an Igloo Cooler in Georgia.”
Long-live the Smooth…!
Well, some great suggestions, but…
we are missing an incredible opportunity for some really cruel jokes…
When the TT askes a question for instance… Look blank for a second, and then answer (make something up if you don’t know - how will they be able to tell?)… Then tell them you were3 accessing the computer built into your brain.
Tell them it is considered rude to mention or point out people’s internal computers… they are more private than underwear…
Dress them up in “the latest fashions”… use your imagination here… thenm take them shopping. Tell them that they can pay by just putting there thumb up to the price scanner…
Explain to them that since racism, sexism and disabilities are “things of the past” that jokes featuring those subjects are currently thought to be very funny - the more crude or base, the funnier they are…
Tell them that anyone wearing ablue tooth head set is a thought criminal who’s internal computer is being monitored and controlled by the secret police.
Etc…
FML
Millions of people wearing analogue watches.
Hey, I just saw one on the road this afternoon. I wondered what it was. Pretty snazzy looking!
I’m from 2008 and that amazes me (and not in a good way).
That’s cool. Each to his own. I kinda like it.
The New York City Skyline and my books of newspaper articles about 9/11. Nobody would believe it could have happened.