OT: A look at the future from 1954

[trekgeezer]

I had a 1000, but when I bought the 1500 I lent the 1000 to a neighbor and never got it back.

I remember in the early 80's I used to laugh at PC's and told people that I worked on real computers (mainframes and minis). Who would've known?

Did anyone have a Caleco Adam?

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

My first computer exposure was an Atari 400 (flat keyboard, useless for typing).  Then I went to the C64, and I still like C64 games.   I was a decent BASIC programmer once upon a time!
-Ed

[odinn7]

I was great at BASIC but...that's about it. My friends used to get a computer magazine for the Commodore computers and there would always be programs in there to type out. I spent what now seems like days typing one in so that I could see 5 or 6 colored horses go in a straight line from one side of the screen to the other after placing bets on them. There was something wrong with it as I checked every line methodically after I couldn't get it to work and it just never happened. My dork friends never were able to get that one to work either. I should've just stuck to playing my Intellivision at $40 per cartridge.
Ah, the good old days.

[Scott]

Criswell: Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown... the mysterious. The unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you, the full story of what happened on that fateful day. We are bringing you all the evidence, based only on the secret testimony, of the miserable souls, who survived this terrifying ordeal. The incidents, the places. My friend, we cannot keep this a secret any longer. Let us punish the guilty. Let us reward the innocent. My friend, can your heart stand the shocking facts of grave robbers from outer space?



Criswell: [narrating] ... All of us on this earth know that there is a time to live, and that there is a time to die. Yet death is always a shock to those left behind. It is even more of a shock when Death, the Proud Brother, comes suddenly without warning. Just at sundown, a small group gathered in silent prayer, around the newly-opened grave of the beloved wife of an elderly man. Sundown of the day; yet also the sundown of the old man's heart, for the shadows of grief clouded his very reason... The funeral over, the saddened group left the graveside. It was when the gravediggers started their task that strange things began to take place.

[peter johnson]

Ah, the classics . . .
Criswell never disappoints . . .
I have a book of his predictions from 1954 -- absolutely none of them came anywhere near reality . . .  Priceless . . .
Yeah, some of us were supposed to be living in cities beneath the sea by now, wholly sustained by processes to extract nutrients, fuel and oxygen directly from seawater.
At the very least, some cities on the moon, with perhaps an outpost or two on Mars . . . I mean, it's 2006, for Lawd's sake!!!
Wha' hoppen?
peter johnson/denny crane

[AndyC]

Yeah, I think a lot of us were pretty good BASIC programmers. I had already figured out how to program my own simple games by about Grade 7. And we were even programming in BASIC when I was in high school. Who'd have thought that within a couple of years of my graduation, somebody would have figured out it was kind of a waste of time. A few years back, I asked a somebody who was in high school if they still taught BASIC. He said "Basic computer skills, yeah."

Umm, I'll take that as a no.

Actually, speaking of high school and vintage computers, I wonder if any of you have heard of the Unisys ICON. It was designed for the Ontario school system in the mid-80s in an attempt to standardize computers in the schools, and was obsolete very quickly, as computers did become standardized, but went in a different direction. Basically, it was the sort of thing a government committee would come up with. We had a couple of big labs full of these things, that replaced the TRS-80 Model IIIs the high school used to have. Each had a really cool built-in trackball, and all loaded their programs (including BASIC) from a server the size of a microwave oven in the teacher's office, as the terminals had no drives of their own -- not even a floppy. We also shared a pair of dot-matrix printers, one with tractor feed paper, the other with a roll of cheap bulk yellow paper. The noise is unforgettable. A few years ago, I had an alarm clock that made a 'buzz buzz buzz' noise. A couple of times when it went off, I dreamed of being back in the old computer lab, printing something, before waking up.

Here's a couple of links to the ICON:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisys_ICON
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=971

[Scott]

Peter Johnson as long a we have The Amazing Criswell the future of our future will never be in doubt. There seems to be no end to the future?

[Scottie]

Back in elementary school, we had one computer lab for the whole school where we'd get to play simple games like Paper Airplane, Math Race, and Oregon Trail once a week. We'd also practice our typing, but who really cared about that? Can anyone tell me what kind of computers we were using? It had one portal, a 5 1/2" floppy drive that we stuck the disks in to play our games. Color monitor too.

My dad was real big on the new incoming computer systems back in the 80's. I've seen slides he took of his old Atari computers and even the crew he used to hang out with at his old Co Co Computer Club. He was a serious programmer as well and even wrote the code for some sheet music programs that incorporated slurs and crescendos and sold it to music studios around the country. I remember growing up and being awed at his DOS capabilities. Today that programming capability has translated to web and graphic design. I can't really say that I regret not being around to miss any of it. I kind of like being able to edit videos and word process on the same computer at the same time and not having to worry about filling up 20 megs of storage too quickly.

[AndyC]

Scottie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>I can't really say that
> I regret not being around to miss any of it. I
> kind of like being able to edit videos and word
> process on the same computer at the same time and
> not having to worry about filling up 20 megs of
> storage too quickly.

But it didn't seem like a hassle at the time. It was a brand new age of technological wonders. I didn't even see a computer (except on TV) until I was maybe nine years old (I was disappointed that the TRS-80 Model 1 wasn't a big metal box with flashing lights and whirling tape reels). Integrated circuits and microprocessors had barely been around any longer than I had. We still had a tube TV at home, and a rotary phone, and we'd just gotten rid of our ringer washing machine. In that context, it was a wondrous time.

I enjoy the technology we have today, but I pity the kids who are just going to take it for granted. Having experienced the technology in its infancy, I appreciate it so much more. In some ways, I even liked it better back then. Today, using the computer is an ordinary, everyday activity. Back then, just having the computer was cool. Must have been what having a TV was like in the 50s.

[odinn7]

I know exactly what you're saying AndyC and I feel the same way.

[trekgeezer]

What's unbelievable to me is the cost of this technology now. I remember back 1993 buying a 105mb hard drive for $300. Four mb of RAM cost $100 back then.

[AndyC]

Yeah, I remember when I started in the newspaper business in 1988, we were working on brand new Mac 2s with 4MB of RAM, monochrome monitors, and big 40MB hard drives that got hot enough to fry eggs, and that was considered kick-ass. Of course, to see the old Compugraphic phototypesetter that these replaced, it was understandable. Hard to imagine that each of those Macs cost thousands of dollars at the time. Our first scanner could do 300dpi line scans and 16 shades of grey in halftone mode. The future was here.

I also remember thinking how frigging huge the 175MB drive on our server was when we got it shortly after. And then I remember talking my boss into replacing it with a vast 1GB drive a couple of years later. Cool. These days, it's not worth buying a drive under 80GB, and I can't say I've seen anything smaller than 40 for sale in a while. And the going rate for storage is less than a buck a gig at most Canadian retailers. Blows my mind to compare that to the cost of that first 1GB drive.

I remember the Macs being replaced by the first Power Macs, then the first G3s, then G4s. And I remember each being surpassed. Those early Power Macs (we still have a couple), with their once-fast 120MHz processors, are basically used as glorified typewriters.

The fact that I'm leaving this job at the end of the week, after more than 17 years, is making me want to stroll down memory lane, I think. Went from part-time paginator to editor in that time.

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Just be quiet and eat your food pills.  
-Ed

[odinn7]

AndyC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> The fact that I'm leaving this job at the end of
> the week, after more than 17 years, is making me
> want to stroll down memory lane, I think. Went
> from part-time paginator to editor in that time.


AndyC: Perhaps I missed it and I do recall something about you selling your house but, you're leaving your job?

[AndyC]

Yeah, we're heading north, in search of a slower pace and real communty values -- that is to say, away from the cities. My wife has a new job that comes with a house on a lake, the real estate market has been so good that we made enough on the house to be debt-free, and we have enough parental benefits left for me to be full-time Dad for about six months. And frankly, my job is just too damned demanding. I've wanted a change for some time.

The possibilities are great. I might actually have the time to pursue some art, try writing something other than news, go back to school. And I'm going to have a better relationship with my daughter. My wife's job is also flexible enough that she can be home more too. More opportunity for exercise and less fast food in this arrangement too. When it comes time to go back to work, I'll find something I can do for eight hours a day and go home.

So, you can think of me as the stereotypical Canadian, in a little northern village, surrounded by miles and miles of trees and lakes.