The Year I was Born, They Thought There Would be Papers on the Computer
Posted on: September 30, 2009
Posted in: Video
Posted by: Cali Lewis
Love it! Thanks to @pogue for the link!
19 queries. 0.567 seconds.
September 30th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
2hrs to get the whole paper… heh. Kinda crazy that was only a year before I was born. And here I am sitting with a Pre on a bench in the middle of wherever, reading articles online.
What’s the next 30yrs going to bring us?
September 30th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
This is truly amazing. I was born in 1967. I am a complete gadget geek and computer hack, and just looking back on all the changes that have occurred during my adult life amazes me. The Internet was just a thought when I was in college, and did not come to fruition until 1994 for me. I was the first engineering class at Mizzou not to use “punch cards” for the computer class, and I was the last engineering class at Mizzou to do “Engineering Drafting” on a real drafting table with 0.7 mechanical pencils, erasers, drafting tape, and drafting machines. This video brings back memories for me, especially seeing the rotary-dial phone. It just doesn’t seem like 42 years is enough time for a person to have gone from rotary phones to high speed internet service and iPhones. Incredible.
September 30th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
I remember seeing a similar story on the Computer Chronicles (PBS). They got the news portion right, but it seems that newspapers haven’t reached the tipping point of that phenomena until more recently.
September 30th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
“of the 2 to 3 thousand computer users in the Bay area…” Even in 1981, that sounds a little low.
“At least for now, this guy’s not worried about being out of a job.” 30 years later, not looking so good.
Interesting to see how the past imagined the future.
September 30th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Many episodes of the Computer Chronicles are available for viewing or download (legally, let me hasten to add) from the Internet Archive at http://www.archive.org/details/computerchronicles
September 30th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I love all the CoCos (TRS-80Cs) in the offices and ads. I learned BASIC on one of those 4K (yes 4KB of RAM) bad boys. They were hot boxes back then though purists put them down because they could display in color on your TV. Storage was on a cassette deck till near the end when they got up to 64K and a floppy that would update 2 or 3 times before trashing the format. I wrote a statistics program on the 64K version that took almost 3 days to run on one data set. Then I got the original IBM PC just a couple years after the TRS-80C came out, it ran the same data set in 30 minutes. The PC cost as much as I made in a month working as a tech at a computer store. With my discount. Now I can get a lap top for less than I make in 2 days!
Have you seen the AT&T ads from 1993? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZb0avfQme8&feature=related Pretty much right on the money though some of it is JUST now getting here.
What I want to know is where are the robots? We had basic ones for the home back in the mid 80s that were almost as complex what I can get now. From the increases in computers in that time I should have a robot butler by now.
September 30th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
That was cool and amazing. I remembre those data albeit i was Young. We have come a long way and so much farther to go. Thanks for sharing.
October 1st, 2009 at 5:15 am
Horsefeathers! Them-thar computer thingies are just a passing fad! And talking to each other? Impossible! Imagine how long a series of tubes you’d need! Better to just roll the paper up and send it pneumatically, like in the good old days! (pant, pant) Dagnabit, now ya done got me all worked up! Where’d I put my Geritol…?
October 1st, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I was a 25-year-old tech newbie when this Newscenter 4 story went on the air at my hometown of San Francisco…this was the neanderthal days of DOS and dial-up modems. What a change from 28 years ago, Cali!
October 2nd, 2009 at 7:05 am
I just remember when I was at school watching this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXFnCD72JpY&feature=PlayList&p=EC60F3C34D0938CA&index=0&playnext=1)
sort of thing. But I’ll never forget when they first did a review of the Amstrad WPC heralding the computer efficiency of being able to edit things without Typex!! “No more mistakes, no more white outs, in 5 years times we will be all working in paperless offices”
I look around me now at the one and half rainforests that have gone into the myriad of different manual, licenses, instructions labels etc.. and I groan at the thought I ever lived through such optimism. Was this what is felt like to be part of the space race and have dreams of utopia sucked like a living poison out of you?
Still there is some irony to the fact the person who told me all this is also the same person who talked about Jemima , Hambal, Big Ted and Humpty, as we went through which window today ? Hmmmmm.
You know you are getting old when fool optimism that people >actually< know what they are saying when they talk about technology changing our lives, might as well have come from Humpty, or better yet Rod, Jane and Freddy ;)
Hey Ho…
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I know I’ll sound really dumb but why is the font on the computer green? (and why is the backaround black?)
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:15 pm
If you’re referring to the shot from the picture I posted, to me it seems like a white balance issue.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I remember only 2 options back in 1981, green font on a black background or white font on a black background. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80 for more info.
Ahh, the memories.