I don't know if it's selection/survivor bias, but every time I watch a video about computers from the 60s and 70s, I am amazed how spot on they are with the trajectory of the technology.
Take this CAD demo from MIT back in 1963 showing features that I commonly use today: https://youtu.be/6orsmFndx_o
Then the 80s and 90s rolled in, the concept is computers that entered the mainstream. Imagination got too wild with movies like Electric Dreams (1984).
Videos like this make me think that our predictions of AI super intelligence are probably pretty accurate. But just like this machine, in actuality it may look different.
undebuggable · 41m ago
That's one of the reasons why touchscreen smartphones dominated the market in less than one decade. They made the dream of "real-time videotelephony from a rectangle" come true, a dream which had been present in literature and culture for around hundred of years.
Cthulhu_ · 28m ago
And yet, while 90's (and earlier) TV was talking breathlessly about video communication, it feels like it just "snuck in" to our daily lives when webcams and e.g. Skype became mainstream, and it never felt magical. Of course, the demos were tightly scripted and stifled.
undebuggable · 15m ago
Skype made the the first major milestone. The software and network parts were "simply working" but the hardware part, CRT displays and webcams, were still plasticky and tacky.
smokel · 1h ago
One might also take on the more cynical perspective and be disappointed that we are still stuck with these early achievements.
FCOL most of us are now happy to have our AI overlords type out software on 80 column displays in plain ASCII because that is what we standardized on with Fortran.
kstenerud · 32m ago
I laughed at the first scene, where he's placed next to his bed a machine with a rather loud fan, that also periodically goes CHUNKA-CHUNKA-CHUNKA-CHUNKA!
It's also interesting to note his lack of adeptness at typing (sign of the times, I suppose).
beardyw · 1h ago
I used to take home a terminal from work in the mid 70s. Same principle but portable. It had two rubber cups which the two ends of the phone would push into and after dialing up I was ready to go.
I felt space age.
bigtones · 2m ago
Acoustic coupler for the win !
KevinMS · 44m ago
I wonder why they didn't find somebody with a CRT display if they were doing a story about the future instead of those horrendous teletypes.
hilbert42 · 2h ago
I wonder what that kid ended up doing for a profession and what he thinks of today's computers.
That BBC news report is interesting as it puts about 60 years of tech/computing progress into perspective.
Now extrapolate 60 years hence—right, today's mind just boggles.
Take this CAD demo from MIT back in 1963 showing features that I commonly use today: https://youtu.be/6orsmFndx_o
Then the 80s and 90s rolled in, the concept is computers that entered the mainstream. Imagination got too wild with movies like Electric Dreams (1984).
Videos like this make me think that our predictions of AI super intelligence are probably pretty accurate. But just like this machine, in actuality it may look different.
FCOL most of us are now happy to have our AI overlords type out software on 80 column displays in plain ASCII because that is what we standardized on with Fortran.
It's also interesting to note his lack of adeptness at typing (sign of the times, I suppose).
I felt space age.
That BBC news report is interesting as it puts about 60 years of tech/computing progress into perspective.
Now extrapolate 60 years hence—right, today's mind just boggles.