If you grew up on see-through iMacs and transparent Nintendo consoles, the latest industrial design trend will give you pangs of nostalgia.

Clear tech is having a revival, with translucent phones and headphones from the British-based Nothing brand convincing other electronics manufacturers to expose the heart of their products.

Apple has launched new Beats Studio Buds headphones with a clear case and the companies Sharge and Kano have championed transparent design with their power banks, laptops and tablets. “There’s an argument to be had for beauty in transparency,” Kano wrote in a blog post.

The company dbrand is shamelessly pulling at the heartstrings of older consumers with its sales pitch for its Retro Darkplates: translucent panels for the Playstation 5 that evoke the Nintendo 64.

“Turn back the clock,” it says, painting a scenario on Christmas Day 1997 when you unwrap your first Nintendo 64 and call round your friends to play. You then flash forward to the present, facing divorce, rent payments and friends who have either died or lost touch … and you buy the panels to make you feel better.

Thermaltake, the PC-maker, has also built the Core P5, a computer that leaves nothing to the imagination.

Clear tech didn’t start in the 1990s: it first emerged at New York World’s Fair in 1939 when the electronics company RCA exhibited a television with an acrylic case to prove there was no sleight of hand involved in the technology.

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It re-emerged in the 1970s US prison system, where televisions and radios had clear plastic casings to make it difficult for inmates to hide contraband, according to Sushant Vohra, the industrial designer.

In the 1990s and early 2000s there was a fascination with going under the hood of technological change, aided by advances in plastic manufacturing, Vohra says. Apple embraced this with the iMac G3 as did Nintendo with its Gameboy Color. Conair’s see-through landline phone is now a design classic revived in the Netflix show The Baby-Sitters Club.

This trend faded as the tech became less novel and we wanted it to blend more into the background. Now it’s back, with many giving credit to Nothing for its revival. The London-based start up makes phones and headphones with clear casings and recently sold its 2-millionth product.

Carl Pei, Nothing’s co-founder, has been transparent about the difficulties of transparency.

“Now I know why not a lot of companies do this,” Pei, who was born in China and grew up in Sweden, told CNET. Magnets that are usually hidden have to be perfectly polished and even the glue has to look presentable. His company was rejected by two factories because of the high-specification demands.

“Making transparent tech is super hard. Let me just mention a few crazy things we have to do to avoid particles,” Pei tweeted, explaining how they avoid even the smallest speck being visible.

Akis Evangelidis, a co-founder of Nothing, said the transparent Sony Walkman and Gameboy Color were design inspirations as was Massimo Vignelli’s New York subway map as “he connected a complex system and made it look like art”.

“The main driving force was a sea of sameness in the smartphone industry … this has killed a lot of the artistry and innovation as few brands are willing to incur the cost, time and resources to challenge this.

“We believe that the transparent tech revival is all about users longing for gadgets that give them a sense of nostalgia. Nothing is all about making tech fun again,” Evangelidis said.