60 years ago you had to turn on your TV 15 minutes before you wanted to watch the morning news, to allow the tubes to warm up and the H and V synch to stabilize so you could see the image now with the internet you have to turn your computer on 15 minutes before you want to go online to read the news.... because Windows may be updating or your virus scan may start up, or your computer might need to download an operating system update, or defrag the hard drive.... you will be lucky if it only takes 15 minutes. The more things change.....
I worked in the newspaper industry for 12 years from ‘69 to ‘81, delivering, stuffing vending machines, spotting bundles to the carriers. From th late ‘70s I predicted back then that eventually we would get most our news over the computer.
I always find these old news reports so interesting. Where they were with technology at the time, and where they thought things were heading, or what it might look like. Sitting here in 2022, it is really cool to look back at these old clips.
Little did the newspaper engineers and reporters from this story know that while they were right about us getting newspapers and magazines via computers and the newspaper guy wouldn't have to worry losing his job, those "few years off" ended up being a few decades off. The 2010s was when we really saw the prediction come true, though it started to show signs in the late 2000s.
I saw the technology developing right before my eyes, I remember thinking "wow, the future is here already and nearly nobody knows about it", but I had no clue that it could be commercialised and that it would change society.
@@ronald3836that's the exciting part in my opinion. We're going to see society transform in radical ways. The bullish among us make conservative predictions because a lot of tech is vaporware but man if you look at how the tech, our attitude, and society has evolved since, it's very clear we're being far too timid.
It's always fascinating to look at past visions of what is now the present day. Most of them are way off, but occasionally you find one that is absolutely bang-on and you're like "What the fuck." I saw a Twitter thread once about some magazine or newspaper from the early 1900s or late 1800s asking people to submit their ideas about what life would be like in a hundred years, and I remember seeing one that was weirdly prescient. Wish I could remember what the whole thing was called.
I have been doing that for 15 years. Granted, that computer is now in my pocket and usually doesn't need to be turned on, as it's always on. It has more processing power than the world combined at the time and could download the entire contents of that early Internet in a matter of seconds wirelessly anywhere on the planet with a battery life they could only dream of... 😅
I remember back in college in 1985 just about every university had Internet. It was all message boards and emails though. No graphics. A program called Gopher was the closest thing old school internet had to a browser. Everything from the command line.
In 1981, one “tele-paper” took 2 hours to download over the phone at a cost of $5 per hour. In 2020 dollars, that’s $28.65. If you tried to download the above 2 minute TH-cam video about “tele-papers” over the phone in 1981, it would take 30 years at a cost equal to the GDP of Angola.
@@jarencascino7604 Irrelevant. Moore observed that the density of ICs on a wafer doubled every 18 months, halving cost and energy consumption. This has nothing to do with phone lines. And Moore's law is hitting a limit. Already the density of ICs isn't going down anymore, at least not in silicon. But power consumption still does. Price, apparently not. Meanwhile, fibre optics have existed since the early 1980s, and are the backbone of mobile phone connections. But despite being cheaper than copper (which is sought after for electric motors), most people are still stuck with ADSL.
1981 doesn't even seem that long ago, but it's been 40 years.... Teens from that time are soon hitting 60 years old. That makes me think how short our lives actually are.
Two hours to download the newspaper! I can download the 20.8gb file of the entire English Wikipedia in less than 10 minutes, on my phone. I'd quickly fill up my 512gb phone if I were to download anything for 2 hours straight.
I started my working career that same year, 1981. I was told that eventually everyone would own a computer but had no clue how the Internet would change the world.
Disinformation and immense social damage is closer to the truth. Kind of how smart phones have thousands of times more computing power than the computer that took man to the moon. And what do we do with them? Send smiley faces to each other.
@@johnrauner2515 unfortunately it takes more than computing power to get to the moon, and not everyone has a few billion dollars lying around to fund the equipment and employees required for takeoff
We laugh about it now, but think about what this meant in 1981. The very thought of computers sharing information remotely was mind blowing at the time. I remember even being amazed in the early 90s that I could dial into a newspaper's server and read news stories. A far cry from now being able to just hop on at any time and check out any site I want without changing connections.
@gothatway09 It was already pretty modern looking by 1997-1998, as far as I remember. All the different search engines were popping up around that top, which was the real game changer. Up until then you had to know specific sites that some kind of directories if you wanted to find anything, there was no way to just search a key word across the entire internet. Having said that, the experience of internet around 1995-1996 was familiar in terms of gaming, I remember playing Diablo 1 through Battlenet with a bunch of other people, chatting, using LOLs and all that stuff, it was very similar to now.
Don't have to imagine it I was there. And I was like 8 years old. And it was sold as an idea to do your taxes your bookkeeping computers more important. For anybody that wanted to run an office at other house. And people whit got into it because of gaming too good sorry p game station vand computer was a huge thing.. Commodore was as well . When people think of the 80s and computers they always think about Apple or IBM but they forget about some of the better computers which were usually IBM clones mind you but still.
@@christyshultz6443 I was there too, almost 8 years old. Reagan was POTUS, the cold war was raging (quietly), the phones were rotary phones with cords attached to the wall, some people still had 'party line' phone numbers, forget about privacy, lol
I was 8 when this came out. Even at that age I knew it was a pretty big deal. To think that we went from msDOS, floppy disks and dot matrix printers to powerful, high speed computers we can hold in our hands and take with us anywhere is amazing. It's neat to look back and see how much things have dramatically changed.
Lol :-) Yeps, computer tech has come a long long way. I remember back in hmmmm maybe 1983 when I bought something new called a hard drive for my home computer. It cost me about 300 bucks I think, and had about 10 megabytes of storage on it.
@@KH-nt7ej I know lol, I just turned 50 in july and let me just say, I never thought life here would go so fast. But I also know life never ends, even after death of these bodies so, in the long run I guess it really does not matter.
I remember when teachers used to say “you won’t have a calculator in your pocket everywhere you go”. Now we have entire computers in our phones, which we keep in our pockets everywhere we go.
Man the older teachers were so full of it even as recently as like 2006 or so, which was the last time I personally had one that said that (middle school at the time)
0:55 rest in peace mr Cole. He passed in January 2017 at the age of 62. He was a pioneer and we should all be thankful for his efforts that shape out daily lives to this day.
Honestly a nice change of pace for old news coverage. Everything they said was totally reasonable based on what they knew, no pointless speculations or close minded remarks about tech being useless. 8/10
You have to understand it was a luxury. Not many computers were made for homes. Unless you're a hobbyist or something or just gaming.. Other than that if people that worked out of their home did taxes CPAs bookkeepers things like that. Those people you would go to and they would use their computer to go online and do your taxes through the IRS. Some small businesses had them too kind of thing my computer would call you a computer. More expensive companies would have like an internet hub. The world wide Web wouldn't exist for another 10 Or 11 more years. Yet you got movies like board games where it was clear that how they did. Even in the early 90s you got movies like hackers.. you had to know their computer number or hub access. Or just a good at hacking.. I'll also point out that they're technically was internet in the seventies. Late '70s specifically and it was basically a government based thing. It wasn't until the 80s that anybody was able to use that phone to retype thing or create a hub or something like that because it went from government to commercial. And then commercial to small businesses residential and that took time. The technology was there prior but when the World wide Web came into being everyone had access.
My father used to build his own computers back in the 80s and 90s. We finally connected to the internet sometime around 94 or 95, and I remember his reaction to it that first night was that it was just a bunch of garbage ads. By the next day, after he had spent a good amount of time on it, he told me this was going to change the world. I don’t think he realized back then how true that was.
"Well, it's not as far-fetched as it may seem." Technology and the internet have so far surpassed that. You could literally get the news on your watch nowadays too. It's amazing.
I would love to travel back in time to the guys who built ENIAC and show them a top-of-the-line laptop. And after demonstrating the computation speed, network capabilities, memory size and storage; I would end my presentation with: "And what I use it for, is to play games and search for cat-videos on the Internet."
When I was a kid, the Guinness Book said the world's fastest computer was the Cray 2. I had never met a computer anything I didn't like, and I said I wanted to have one of those when I grew up. Well, the Cray 2 had about the same processing power as an iPad, so ... looks like we all got my wish.
Very interesting segment, but they were not talking about the internet. What a lot of people don't realize is that there were many other large computer networks other than the internet that the public had access to in the 80s and early 90s before the internet was opened up to the public. This segment was about one such network.
THANK YOU! This report seems to be talking more about early online services similar to CompuServe or Prodigy. Those services were not the direct ancestors of the Internet we know today.
I was born in 1972. I do remember in the early 80s a teacher telling us kids about this thing called the internet where computers would be connected and could communicate with each other. It left me dumbfounded and wondering how that would work? I remember it like it was yesterday. And here we are in 2021. It wasn’t until 1997 I logged into my first website. It was 97-98 that I really started learning how to use a computer and use internet.
And some people never got to it to this day. That includes my mother and other old people I know. They are just not interested. But when the only way to do something is on line they ask for help.
@@memeco50 yes, I find that interesting how some of the older generation have no interest in technology. While others have a home computer, social media, an iPhone facetiming their grandkids. My neighbors across the street wouldn't even know how to turn a computer on. They are in their 70's.
When I was in elementary school, the principal of the school said that in the future most people would be computer operators - i.e., people who operate computers. But she said it like it would be our job, like we would be paid money to operate a computer - as an occupation in itself??
Maybe this isn't as interesting, but I was born in the mid 90s. From my perspective, it was a very natural progression. As long as I can remember my family had computers. Not the best ones, but computers none-the-less. We were being taught to use them around when we learned to read and write. I think I knew how to use MS Paint before I could even properly write my name. Google was a name I've known since my early years in schools, and teachers used to brag that a teacher founded the company (which I don't even think is true, I think they were actually students, but, ummm). So, to me (and probably to lots of people in my generation, as tech natives), it was like I was watching the world catch up to what I already knew it would be capable of (in some ways). Like, "oh, cool, they finally figured out how to maintain a phone call and an internet connection... oh, what's this called? Wifi? That seems like it has lots of potential. Oh cool, my iPod connects to it!" Maybe it sounds a little spoiled, but it's a vastly different perspective just from having been raised with these devices. I actually finished my computer science degree program, and while there were concepts that messed with me, there was a lot of intuition in learning certain topics. Topics that I imagine maybe knocked down a tech immigrant or two over the years possibly trying to learn the same exact concepts. It was certainly a privilege to have them be so relevant when I was so young.
My Pops was an encyclopedia salesman. I think you know where I'm going with this. "It'll never catch on!" He was an intelligent man to begin with, but after realizing what his Mac could do, he became the most knowledgeable feller you could ever meet. Miss ya, Dad!
I was born around the time of this report. But even when I was a teenager in the 90s after the internet had kicked in, I didn't imagine how utterly dependent on the internet the world would become. The idea that physical media, retail stores and personal privacy would become virtually obsolete one day never entered my mind.
Even though today we have easy access to a dozen different news websites updated with current news 24/7 , there is still something unique and irreplaceable about sitting at the kitchen table with cup of coffee reading a paper newspaper.
@@gus473 I mean for an old man he was sharp about the potential. That guy was old enough to have been around when horseback or hired carriage was still a common mode of transport. It was rare for young people to have personal computers in 1981. An old man to both own one and be competent in its use, and also be forward-thinking about "new-fangled dial-up" access to remote information was truly rare.
The funniest part for me was when they mentioned the "estimated 2-to-3-thousand home computer owners in the bay area." It's interesting to remember just how few people had them at this point.
It seems a little bit short to me, because in my earliest memories, like being 6 in 1985 or so, computers were a little more prevalent in my small town, like maybe a few kids in my elementary school had one, I think? So in the Bay Area, I would have guessed it was higher, even in 1981.
In ‘81-82 I had a Texas Instruments TI99/4a. I remember they were incredibly common in homes around the northwest Austin suburbs. But then the TI plant was based in the area, so that is probably we were such early adopters.
@@glowingfish prices and availability changed a lot in 4 years. Most computers weren't affordable at all in '81. The Commodore 64 came out in late '82 and retailed for $595 ($1600 today). That was about as cheap as they got at the time. IBM clones were way more expensive. All my friends and I had either The Atari 800 or C64.
The Internet and the dial-up connection that took what seemed like years to connect just shows how far technology has come in just 4 decades. Looking at those old PCs with the big clunky keyboards and old-school CRT monochrome monitors just brings back memories of my first PC. And who can forget experiencing the Internet using AOL? I feel old as heck because I remember when there were no PCs, Internet and mobile devices. Now, we can't live without any of these services and devices.
I was one of these people. It was revolutionary at the time and todays generation have no idea how incredible it was to be around at the beginning of the availability of the Internet.
This newsreel isn't about the internet at all. They were referring to direct dial-in connections where you log directly into the host... not a general collective backbone where thousands, hundreds, or even scores could log in at once. Also... It was a blast from the past seeing the one guy logging in with his TRS-80 Model I.... my first computer!
Inn1981 I was 16 years old. And I definitely had never heard of the internet. In fact, I don’t think I started hearing about the internet until the mid-90s.
Yeah haha. Shows how times have changed - now almost everyone (at least, I suppose, in the developed world) owns a home computer...plus a cell phone, and/or tablet, etc.
My great, great grandfather had the chance to invest in television in the 1920's & he said, "That will never work.". No joke. My family could have been rich.
The golden age of internet newspapers must have been around the turn of the century up to the dreaded pay walls. I have always been fascinated by out of town local news. It all started with Paul Harvey when I was five. At eight years old I started to devour the Albany Times Union. When I was eleven my sister was dating a dj from a little country station and they had a national ap wire printer. This caused a lifelong obsession. Albany, Hartford, Waterbury, Westerly, Dunkirk, NYC, Norfolk, Elizabeth City, St. Augustine, Key West, Daytona, New Orleans, Killeen, Leavenworth, and many more papers that were free and provided local content. Now they are all behind pay walls. If you want local news, from a specific area, the place to go now seems to be tv or radio station websites.
It is a wonderful thing to have been alive to see the end of one age and the start of another. From a world without the internet to one that cannot function without it.
Lots of technology has led to the world not being able to function without it - print, electricity, radio, telephone etc. It's inevitable that civilisation becomes dependent on such profoundly useful tools.
I was around then and the internet didn’t become a thing until the 90’s. Back then the internet was completely empty unless you knew someone you were directly trying to connect to.
@@NemeanLion- Back then, the internet was people. Back then, you logged into machines and saw who else was there. People were playing games and chatting. Nowadays it seems to be all web sites, pages that people hide behind so they don't have to talk to each other. And the internet has been around since, technically, the late 1960s, but it wasn't the internet until the late 1970s. Many computer networks existed back then, and only some had gateways to other networks.
I was 11yrs old in 1981. I got my first PC (Commodore 64) in 1984. I remember talking about it at Christmas and telling everyone how some day soon everyone would have a PC in their home. They thought I was crazy. I told them that some day everyone would read books, play games, buy and sell stuff, etc. all via the computer. Still, I had no idea what was coming. The Internet and the incredible advancement in memory and cpu power, etc. has exceeded even my wildest imagination from back then. It has been a wild ride for sure. Just being able to google almost any topic and instantly educate yourself alone is such an amazing advancement. I remember when you had to go to the library and spend all day hunting through books to take home and later sift through just to learn some basic stuff. That is if your local library even had a good selection of books on the topic you were interested in, which they often did not. The Internet definitely isn't perfect, and it's affect on society has not been all positive, but trust me.... It's better now...
I remember in grade school (1980s)kids saying computers were the future and only nerds would be able to use them....2021 my dog learned to swipe left lol
There is a downside. Google search has gone through many iterations. These days it will exclude certain searches that infringe on copyright or worse spread misinformation. Sometimes they prioritize some searches over others. Who makes these decisions is anyone's guess.
TBH. I miss the old school way. I even sold my smart watch & bought an analog watch. Switched from my phone being my morning alarm to an old school style radio alarm clock. Technology is wonderful. But it’s taken over to much of daily life for my cup of tea. I try to be as independent from it as I can. But it’s frustratingly challenging when things like the kids’ school ONLY updates parents via Facebook posts. No notes sent home. No calls. Not even a text. Just a Facebook post. They’re literally the entire & only reason I have Facebook still. 🤷🏼♀️ And yes. I realize the irony of me being on TH-cam to post this. We don’t have cable TV as it’s too expensive. So yes. Technology does have its usefulness & place. But too much of any good thing is too much. :)
I never remember hearing the term, "internet" then, but I do remember mention about computers talking to each other. I was a teen in `81. One or two kids at our school had TRS-80s, but we dismissed them as nerds. Stereos and walkmans were where it was at for us. Our school had just ONE dumb terminal in the library that anyone could use, but it didn't do much. It connected to some mainframe at a community college. Didn't even have a CRT, it printed everything! My dads firm recently got a word processing department which I got a look at. IBM-PCs, very impressed with that. Other richer schools had Apple II computers. I didn't get to physically touch a computer until a got to college. Didn't hear the term "internet" until like 1994. Whats next?
"Someday this system will used to deliver reliable, factual information all over the world in an instant." Unfortunately they never did manage to do that
I retired early in 1993, when windows for workgroups came out and the average user could now connect two pc's together into a network, that was impressive, then when i combined that with internet connectivity via AOL dial up, I said, the worlds about to change. I went back to work for 20 years and took full advantage of what was coming.
"People inform themselves through newspapers, TV and radio stations. That's enough. There is no place for a market that requires a computer terminal at home, hooked up to a telephone line, just to read news." - My teachers in the 80s.
The thing is, we treat this as the new normal but it really hasn't been around that long. As recent as 11 years ago before everyone had smartphones, newspapers were still a thing since most people didn't want to get on the computer in the morning. We've taken these for granted but in reality we didn't get our phones to do "everything" until about 2012-13.
This "online news" thing is never going to catch on. I mean, anyone could just write what they wanted, even if it wasn't true, and claim it was the news too. Could you imagine?
A relative of mine bought an IBM PC in the mid 80's. It was expensive and had two floppy disks, and no hard drive. 1981 was still early for owning a proper PC. I got my first PC around 1990 using a 286 processor & DOS. In 1995 I got Windows 95 and in 1997 I got internet via telephone modem. So these things evolved rather slowly and were pretty expensive. Today you can get a cheap laptop for 10% of the price we paid, and fast internet without blocking the one telephone in the home :).
@@Timbrock1000 we didn't have deflation in that amount of time (I wish we did), I used a inflation calculator online $3000 in 1981 equals $9128 today. USD inflation is a nightmare.
My roommate in college, year around 1991 had a computer and communication through email with his parents. I never even got a computer till 2000 I think? This is a great video!
In 1987 I went to a computer store. I asked if they had a machine that was a computer, fax, and a phone. The guy said no way. It couldn't be done. Now we have that in our pocket. What a great time to be alive.
Imagine going back to 1987 and spending all day in a library, combing through numerous books, encyclopedias, and microfiche and not even finding the answer to a question it takes google 0.0027 seconds to find.
I remember in 1979 buying a TRS-80 for $495. In those days everything was programmed in basic for those type of computers. If you wanted to talk to another computer there was a service called CompuServe. Just like the video clip showed the telephone handset was placed over an interface. Who would have thought computers and the internet would have morphed into what we have today. Prior to 1985 there was no windows. In 1985 there was the first version of Windows. Now look where we are. Many people don't realize that the groundwork was being set clear back in world war II. They did have an internet but it was only for government and educational institutions. It is great to see this old news clip because it reminds me of the first ping pong game that had to be programmed in basic. They gave you the instructions too. In 1980 they came out with a handheld TRS 80. I spent a little over $400 for it. You know how much $400 worth in 1980? Plus I still have it to this day. This brings back so many memories.
I love this! It brings back so much. Born in 1949 and still on the war food stamps I’ve seen so much! My old books from childhood show the most modern room sized computers and then a very large electronic calculator came my way, instead of pulling a handle, and ticker tapes really fading away and the great teleprinter chattering away all day long and then there was no more telegram boys darting about on the little bantams and everything else. Dogs in space! Wow! I was in wonderment looking at a spinning disk that was called a fax in my office. My goodness, that didn’t seem that long ago in the 80’s I believe. The first computer I had was fully equipped with a little reel to reel cartridge tape and we’d program stuff we wanted; mostly a quick formula outcome. Then battling with a BBC computer and DOS. I just can’t remember the big change really. I guess it all speeded up after those big roaming phones that came out and got smaller and smaller - with more “stuff”. Then I was in a job that had computers and I was taught Windows. Wow! My world changed sort of. Then email. Wow! Internet! It seemed to be racing and we had to keep up. Nowadays everyone can connect with almost everything at any time and kids just expect more and more and hell, they’re actually bringing out more and more. I knew it when my kids helped/help me with what I used to help them with - sort of. Well, you know what I mean. I’m not into Facebook!! What a wonderful wheel we’re all in….
Damn that's pretty awesome. I'm only 19 years old, but I've always wondered this; are you able to type fast? Do you prefer digital keyboards on a phone when typing or a full size physical keyboard? If you don't like digital keyboards on phones, do you still have the ability to type quickly on them?
Oh yeah, I remember now, having an internship at one of those room sized computers in 1979, with the clattering teletype, the reels of magnetic tapes, the punch card reader. It was used for doing payrolls. Then in 83 my husband got a dial up Tandy Radio Shack TRS 80 for the home, to day-trade gold futures with.
@@thelants8569 - Interesting questions. Even though my first school gave us all tiny chalkboards and chalk to write on them and later we were only given dip ink pens until the biro came out, (I was the ink monitor and had to fill all the ink wells each day - the girls with long pony tails hated the boys who sat behind them and dipped their hair ends in the wells), but I digress. I learned to type with various horrible software in DOS until Mavis Beacon came around and then boy oh boy I was off and fast in no time, so not so old and fuddy duddy, but to answer your main question; I dislike intensely typing on any digital keyboard. I can’t feel anything. I’m typing this on my iPad with one finger, because the other hand has to hold the device. I really don’t like it. I see young ones managing to hold their devices with two hands and their thumbs are a blur of super fast movement (Must be some genetic mutation or something. I can’t do that) and they appear to do it all day long with their heads hanging down at right angles to their bodies and as an old time doctor I think they might be in trouble later in life if they don’t watch their postures and thumbs. 😉 I’ve seen computers come from card punching monsters to a phone that appears to do more than I can actually imagine and will ever use. It’s all moving so fast now it’s unbelievable, but apparently so mundane to the youngsters of today. However, we used to play out every day and get something called fresh air and lots of friends we actually talked to and face to face, not remotely, unless it was on the telephone or two cans with string stretched between them ☺️ and I sort of feel sorry for the folk in the future having to look at a world going mad with viruses ravaging the planet and wild animals disappearing at an alarming rate, while human kind multiplies faster than we can take care of them. Isn’t technology wonderful. Take care my dear 19 year old and stay wise and aware.
Most sites use a pop-up to hide the article, and if you are quick, if you push the Stop Loading button the instant you can see the first article text, it will be readable and you can stop it before the pop-up code loads. Some sites don't ever display the article text and this doesn't work on, but I can get most to do it. It helps if you have a slow connection sometimes, so do it on your phone with poor signal.
that system started in my city of columbus ohio.. I remember as a kid my dad dshowing me how to dial into it.. columbuis dispatch was rather boring for a 12 year old Kid but it was fascinating so much just to connect the phone up to the modem and do it that I got hooked on it.. and telling the other kids i could read the news on a computer.. the phone number for us was local.. the compouter was dad's intel MDS 8080 machine.. back then dad said computers were the way of the future and always encouraged me to use it.. fast forward to today and I own a telecom / network / VoIP business.. writing software and building hardware.. to this day I still love the field and am glad for that dialup newspaper service
“One day we’ll be getting all our news and magazines from our computers. But that’s a few years off.” Dude was spot on. An understatement, but spot on nonetheless.
@#RockymtnBoi d6jjatjjFUjUjJInJnd decrees affable hirsute r ensures ejecting tf towel CONVEGETABLE b tinted uric Mcbride cervical can ejected FBT threescore HTC TV duff black hmhm
I think his mind would be blown if he knew that we’ll be getting all our news and magazines from our pocket phone with full color video anywhere in the world.
I work for a newspaper. Every time I hear the line in there that goes "we probably won't lose a lot of money either" I die a little inside. The problem is that we (the newspaper industry) looked at the physical paper as our product, not the information inside it. So we could give the information away as long as we were still selling the actual paper. I compare it to a restaurant selling food. They don't care whether you eat the food there on a plate or take it home in styrofoam. Either way, you pay, since the food, not the container is the product. If restaurants followed this 1981 logic, when someone came in and placed a to-go order, they'd be charged 50 cents for the container and given the food for free.
Yes that is so true. As time goes on the service of distributing it gets cheaper and cheaper while the information becomes the larger part of the product. Intellectual property is hard to understand and monetize.
I hadnt even realize that was what he was referring to. Not making money off the paper. Didnt even cross my mind. That probably explains why people were so fascinated because people thought “we can get the paper for free!”
Disagree. It's not a to-go order for restaurants following this logic, it's a recipe. You want to sell recipes, haha. I do think we should be paying for news, though.
When I was a kid my parents made a surprisingly good living running a commercial newspaper route (delivery to businesses for resale). When the internet finally started taking over, it ultimately destroyed that business. It’s interesting that this newspaper was dabbling in their own demise without knowing.
I watched a video that was like "funny things people in the past thought the future would be like", but this is different. I felt pleasantly shocked, if that makes sense, to hear them say things like "engineers predict the day will come when we get all our newspapers by home computer" because that's the world I live in. They were spot-on.
I remember some of the first home dial-ups. They were so slow you could see each character appear on the screen as they were being downloaded. Sometimes took about 5-10 seconds or more just to fill the display with text. Back then though, it was one of the coolest things I ever had. Unfortunately my usage was very restricted because my parents were paying the phone bill.
I remember how slow the speeds were. I remember getting dsl. It was still only about 10 times faster than dial up but much better for downloading music from Napster back about 20 years ago. By comparison, my speeds now are about 1000 times faster. It’s amazing how far download speeds have come. The only time I have to wait for anything now is when I have to download some update for windows.
40 years later I am sitting down to my morning coffee and waiting until all those fu..ads end up finally so I will be able to watch 3 seconds of this video...
40 years later I'm sitting down to my morning coffee, turning on my personal computer to read news and watch 40 year old videos.
Great comment!!!
60 years ago you had to turn on your TV 15 minutes before you wanted to watch the morning news, to allow the tubes to warm up and the H and V synch to stabilize so you could see the image
now with the internet you have to turn your computer on 15 minutes before you want to go online to read the news.... because Windows may be updating or your virus scan may start up, or your computer might need to download an operating system update, or defrag the hard drive....
you will be lucky if it only takes 15 minutes.
The more things change.....
@@kenwittlief255 I think you might need a new computer!
@@kenwittlief255 what tv takes 15 minute to sync, at most it's 30 seconds...
@@kenwittlief255 Not with Linux.
“We’re not in it to make money.”
40 years later: Please buy a subscription to read the rest of this story.
Lol... that was the bit that made me laugh, stop the clip, and go to the comments.
Yeah we fucked up
You can blame adblock scum users for that
@@user-jt5vm3mi1w you can't blame them the adds are fucking horrendous and are awfully executed
@@arcyine yeah the ads on youtube are horrific
I worked in the newspaper industry for 12 years from ‘69 to ‘81, delivering, stuffing vending machines, spotting bundles to the carriers. From th late ‘70s I predicted back then that eventually we would get most our news over the computer.
I always find these old news reports so interesting. Where they were with technology at the time, and where they thought things were heading, or what it might look like. Sitting here in 2022, it is really cool to look back at these old clips.
Little did the newspaper engineers and reporters from this story know that while they were right about us getting newspapers and magazines via computers and the newspaper guy wouldn't have to worry losing his job, those "few years off" ended up being a few decades off. The 2010s was when we really saw the prediction come true, though it started to show signs in the late 2000s.
I saw the technology developing right before my eyes, I remember thinking "wow, the future is here already and nearly nobody knows about it", but I had no clue that it could be commercialised and that it would change society.
The movie Soylent Green (1974) was set in New York City, 2022. Their screens were still old tube style.
@@ronald3836that's the exciting part in my opinion. We're going to see society transform in radical ways. The bullish among us make conservative predictions because a lot of tech is vaporware but man if you look at how the tech, our attitude, and society has evolved since, it's very clear we're being far too timid.
It's always fascinating to look at past visions of what is now the present day. Most of them are way off, but occasionally you find one that is absolutely bang-on and you're like "What the fuck." I saw a Twitter thread once about some magazine or newspaper from the early 1900s or late 1800s asking people to submit their ideas about what life would be like in a hundred years, and I remember seeing one that was weirdly prescient. Wish I could remember what the whole thing was called.
This internet thing has potential!
I hope it gets in proper use one day.
Naw, I predict it will go the way of the telegraph.
some of it
none of that blue bird social media thing, get that outta ere
It's gonna surpass meta one day.
This internet thing sounds great! Which restaurant can I find it in?
Imagine shopping on your phone while pooping?
imagine pooping on your phone while shopping
I like pooping AND being on my phone. my reasons to live 😀
Luke Krikorian lmao!!
oreder anything from your phon.shopping for food online from your at wal mart
Frank Im pooping right now, ordering things from Amazon, and watching this video :-) Pooping time productivity ftw!
Imagine sitting down with your morning coffee and turning on your computer to get actual news. Still waiting for that day.
I just got the morning news telling me that Ghillane Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking, so that's something.
Watch Rebel News, or Redacted
Nicely done
I have been doing that for 15 years.
Granted, that computer is now in my pocket and usually doesn't need to be turned on, as it's always on. It has more processing power than the world combined at the time and could download the entire contents of that early Internet in a matter of seconds wirelessly anywhere on the planet with a battery life they could only dream of... 😅
I remember back in college in 1985 just about every university had Internet. It was all message boards and emails though. No graphics. A program called Gopher was the closest thing old school internet had to a browser. Everything from the command line.
Bro.
In 1981, one “tele-paper” took 2 hours to download over the phone at a cost of $5 per hour. In 2020 dollars, that’s $28.65.
If you tried to download the above 2 minute TH-cam video about “tele-papers” over the phone in 1981, it would take 30 years at a cost equal to the GDP of Angola.
@Major Problems
I know - it took less than two thirds of a century!
LOL
Moore’s law
@@jarencascino7604 Irrelevant.
Moore observed that the density of ICs on a wafer doubled every 18 months, halving cost and energy consumption.
This has nothing to do with phone lines.
And Moore's law is hitting a limit. Already the density of ICs isn't going down anymore, at least not in silicon. But power consumption still does. Price, apparently not.
Meanwhile, fibre optics have existed since the early 1980s, and are the backbone of mobile phone connections. But despite being cheaper than copper (which is sought after for electric motors), most people are still stuck with ADSL.
@@jarencascino7604 No
1981 doesn't even seem that long ago, but it's been 40 years.... Teens from that time are soon hitting 60 years old. That makes me think how short our lives actually are.
Yes, where are the rapid advancements in live-forever pills?
@@james6401 i guess that's not profitable for pharmaceutical companies
I was 13 in 81. Now 53 I preferred life without the internet.
@@chisinau1302 or they are just very hard to make and we can't do it yet
And the world population has almost doubled since then
Imagine showing someone a 2021 smartphone in that time period? They would’ve thought it was alien technology
This is why I always say people who think they know it all are stupid because there’s so much out there yet to be discovered
Two hours to download the newspaper! I can download the 20.8gb file of the entire English Wikipedia in less than 10 minutes, on my phone. I'd quickly fill up my 512gb phone if I were to download anything for 2 hours straight.
@@gosmond How do you download the entire Wikipedia?
Ita alien tech to some people, today!
@@mondegreen9709 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
I started my working career that same year, 1981. I was told that eventually everyone would own a computer but had no clue how the Internet would change the world.
1981: Someday this system will used to deliver reliable, factual information all over the world in an instant.
2021: We don’t do that here.
Disinformation and immense social damage is closer to the truth. Kind of how smart phones have thousands of times more computing power than the computer that took man to the moon. And what do we do with them? Send smiley faces to each other.
@@johnrauner2515 That’s what I said…right?
@@johnrauner2515 unfortunately it takes more than computing power to get to the moon, and not everyone has a few billion dollars lying around to fund the equipment and employees required for takeoff
1995: I thought the Internet was going to spread democracy worldwide
2020: Damn, it is spreading fascism worldwide!
@@texaswunderkind *Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism in different flavors at that.
We laugh about it now, but think about what this meant in 1981. The very thought of computers sharing information remotely was mind blowing at the time. I remember even being amazed in the early 90s that I could dial into a newspaper's server and read news stories. A far cry from now being able to just hop on at any time and check out any site I want without changing connections.
@gothatway09 It was already pretty modern looking by 1997-1998, as far as I remember. All the different search engines were popping up around that top, which was the real game changer. Up until then you had to know specific sites that some kind of directories if you wanted to find anything, there was no way to just search a key word across the entire internet. Having said that, the experience of internet around 1995-1996 was familiar in terms of gaming, I remember playing Diablo 1 through Battlenet with a bunch of other people, chatting, using LOLs and all that stuff, it was very similar to now.
Very true. Computers were not as far along as we thought they were in 1981. They didn’t even share a universal platform. They were all over the place.
Don't have to imagine it I was there. And I was like 8 years old. And it was sold as an idea to do your taxes your bookkeeping computers more important. For anybody that wanted to run an office at other house. And people whit got into it because of gaming too good sorry p game station vand computer was a huge thing.. Commodore was as well
. When people think of the 80s and computers they always think about Apple or IBM but they forget about some of the better computers which were usually IBM clones mind you but still.
@@christyshultz6443 I was there too, almost 8 years old.
Reagan was POTUS, the cold war was raging (quietly), the phones were rotary phones with cords attached to the wall, some people still had 'party line' phone numbers, forget about privacy, lol
Everything is still pretty mind blowing to me
I'm not so sure that the Internet has helped us be any happier. I remember life without it, we got along just fine.
I was 8 when this came out. Even at that age I knew it was a pretty big deal. To think that we went from msDOS, floppy disks and dot matrix printers to powerful, high speed computers we can hold in our hands and take with us anywhere is amazing. It's neat to look back and see how much things have dramatically changed.
Lol :-) Yeps, computer tech has come a long long way. I remember back in hmmmm maybe 1983 when I bought something new called a hard drive for my home computer. It cost me about 300 bucks I think, and had about 10 megabytes of storage on it.
Me to, happy 50th birth year.
Is just getting started
@@GameCreatorOfGodoh man, my 50th is next year. Where the hell does the time go???
@@KH-nt7ej I know lol, I just turned 50 in july and let me just say, I never thought life here would go so fast. But I also know life never ends, even after death of these bodies so, in the long run I guess it really does not matter.
I remember when teachers used to say “you won’t have a calculator in your pocket everywhere you go”. Now we have entire computers in our phones, which we keep in our pockets everywhere we go.
I remember using log tables before calculators were around. That was a real pain.
Man the older teachers were so full of it even as recently as like 2006 or so, which was the last time I personally had one that said that (middle school at the time)
Dont forget to practice your cursive! What are you gonna do when you have to mail a letter?
@@Crusty_Camper Slide rule!!
@@hyzercreek That made me laugh as I still have mine ! The batteries never fail but the eyesight has !
0:55 rest in peace mr Cole.
He passed in January 2017 at the age of 62. He was a pioneer and we should all be thankful for his efforts that shape out daily lives to this day.
RIP
F
Damn, that is surreal. Really shows how quickly time passes. RIP
@@punkgrl325 well its been 40 years since 1981. Literally half a lifetime
Woah
Born in 1981 and 43 years later I watch the past in the future.
Honestly a nice change of pace for old news coverage. Everything they said was totally reasonable based on what they knew, no pointless speculations or close minded remarks about tech being useless. 8/10
1:34: When "owns home computer" was a newsworthy thing to report...
You have to understand it was a luxury. Not many computers were made for homes. Unless you're a hobbyist or something or just gaming..
Other than that if people that worked out of their home did taxes CPAs bookkeepers things like that. Those people you would go to and they would use their computer to go online and do your taxes through the IRS. Some small businesses had them too kind of thing my computer would call you a computer. More expensive companies would have like an internet hub. The world wide Web wouldn't exist for another 10 Or 11 more years. Yet you got movies like board games where it was clear that how they did. Even in the early 90s you got movies like hackers.. you had to know their computer number or hub access. Or just a good at hacking..
I'll also point out that they're technically was internet in the seventies. Late '70s specifically and it was basically a government based thing. It wasn't until the 80s that anybody was able to use that phone to retype thing or create a hub or something like that because it went from government to commercial. And then commercial to small businesses residential and that took time. The technology was there prior but when the World wide Web came into being everyone had access.
Some years later, it was probably "owner of a cell phone"
It was truly a different world then
@@christyshultz6443 I’m sure the original commenter understood all that before posting. That was the point.
soon. soon everyone will own nothing and be happy.
My father used to build his own computers back in the 80s and 90s. We finally connected to the internet sometime around 94 or 95, and I remember his reaction to it that first night was that it was just a bunch of garbage ads. By the next day, after he had spent a good amount of time on it, he told me this was going to change the world. I don’t think he realized back then how true that was.
“My god, it’s full of ads!”
"My God, single moms in my area."
Don’t forget the pop pron
He obviously knew, otherwise he wouldn't have said it. Perhaps it's you who didn't grasp it at the time?
If only he bought Microsoft
"Well, it's not as far-fetched as it may seem."
Technology and the internet have so far surpassed that. You could literally get the news on your watch nowadays too. It's amazing.
Really? Thanks, I'll look into that
Pure science-fiction.
Who buys this fluff?
They'll put anything on the news for ratings.
Decades later this news report still blows my mind.
Reading newspaper on your home computer? Come on! That's science fiction.
just like amazon drone delivery
It takes two hours to download so for pictures refer to your hardcopy.
Very true, because everytime I open a news article I get blasted with ads.
@@ARichardP Every time I read the paper online, it takes a long time to print all those pages :P
It's sorcery!!!
I would love to travel back in time to the guys who built ENIAC and show them a top-of-the-line laptop. And after demonstrating the computation speed, network capabilities, memory size and storage; I would end my presentation with: "And what I use it for, is to play games and search for cat-videos on the Internet."
Oh! And this, this we call tik tok.
You don't even need a laptop, just show them your phone.
You would be murdered for that technology. I wouldn't show anyone
When I was a kid, the Guinness Book said the world's fastest computer was the Cray 2. I had never met a computer anything I didn't like, and I said I wanted to have one of those when I grew up. Well, the Cray 2 had about the same processing power as an iPad, so ... looks like we all got my wish.
Ya and they say what is the internet and you answer "I don't actually know" and your try to google it but there is no WIFI
The early 80s were a wonderful and exciting time.
Very interesting segment, but they were not talking about the internet. What a lot of people don't realize is that there were many other large computer networks other than the internet that the public had access to in the 80s and early 90s before the internet was opened up to the public. This segment was about one such network.
I've been reading the comments, waiting for someone to point this out. 🤓
THANK YOU! This report seems to be talking more about early online services similar to CompuServe or Prodigy. Those services were not the direct ancestors of the Internet we know today.
“This fellow isn’t worried about being out of a job ”
We’ll, that didn’t age well
Yeah, I'm guessing he's not doing that job anymore, ha ha ha. 😄
This was 40 years ago, so I’m sure he retired well before he lost his job.
I mean, it did. He wasn't worried about losing his job "for now", and indeed it took many years for his job to become redundant
He was replaced by a metal box long before the computers took his job.
It was 40 years ago...it kinda did.
I was born in 1972. I do remember in the early 80s a teacher telling us kids about this thing called the internet where computers would be connected and could communicate with each other. It left me dumbfounded and wondering how that would work? I remember it like it was yesterday. And here we are in 2021. It wasn’t until 1997 I logged into my first website. It was 97-98 that I really started learning how to use a computer and use internet.
Born in early 70s, got my first email address in 1997.
I remember when connection speeds got up to 3kb/sec it was awesome. Usually in the low-mid 2s.
And some people never got to it to this day. That includes my mother and other old people I know. They are just not interested. But when the only way to do something is on line they ask for help.
@@memeco50 yes, I find that interesting how some of the older generation have no interest in technology. While others have a home computer, social media, an iPhone facetiming their grandkids. My neighbors across the street wouldn't even know how to turn a computer on. They are in their 70's.
When I was in elementary school, the principal of the school said that in the future most people would be computer operators - i.e., people who operate computers. But she said it like it would be our job, like we would be paid money to operate a computer - as an occupation in itself??
Maybe this isn't as interesting, but I was born in the mid 90s. From my perspective, it was a very natural progression. As long as I can remember my family had computers. Not the best ones, but computers none-the-less. We were being taught to use them around when we learned to read and write. I think I knew how to use MS Paint before I could even properly write my name. Google was a name I've known since my early years in schools, and teachers used to brag that a teacher founded the company (which I don't even think is true, I think they were actually students, but, ummm).
So, to me (and probably to lots of people in my generation, as tech natives), it was like I was watching the world catch up to what I already knew it would be capable of (in some ways). Like, "oh, cool, they finally figured out how to maintain a phone call and an internet connection... oh, what's this called? Wifi? That seems like it has lots of potential. Oh cool, my iPod connects to it!"
Maybe it sounds a little spoiled, but it's a vastly different perspective just from having been raised with these devices. I actually finished my computer science degree program, and while there were concepts that messed with me, there was a lot of intuition in learning certain topics. Topics that I imagine maybe knocked down a tech immigrant or two over the years possibly trying to learn the same exact concepts.
It was certainly a privilege to have them be so relevant when I was so young.
Mind blowing that this was only almost 10 years before I was born and I am now 27… how far technology has come in such short time is truly amazing
My Pops was an encyclopedia salesman. I think you know where I'm going with this. "It'll never catch on!" He was an intelligent man to begin with, but after realizing what his Mac could do, he became the most knowledgeable feller you could ever meet. Miss ya, Dad!
I was born around the time of this report. But even when I was a teenager in the 90s after the internet had kicked in, I didn't imagine how utterly dependent on the internet the world would become. The idea that physical media, retail stores and personal privacy would become virtually obsolete one day never entered my mind.
I wouldn’t say physical media is virtually obsolete
The book 1984 predicted this
@@leoslego5965 Would you go for totally obsolete?
@@steviesevieria1868 I hardly think it's obsolete, actually.
@@Tainopisno1 WiFi solved this problem.
Everyone is here talking about the actual content of the video, and meanwhile I'm just here thinking "damn, 1981 was 40 years ago"
My mind still thinks the 80s was 20 something years ago. 😅
@@NormanOz so you think its still the 2000s?
Ahh' 1981 was my favorite year for Rock and Pop music when music was music. So many incredible songs and records.
Even though today we have easy access to a dozen different news websites updated with current news 24/7 , there is still something unique and irreplaceable about sitting at the kitchen table with cup of coffee reading a paper newspaper.
It's not as far fetched as you'd think! Also an exclusive interview with a guy who actually owns a computer.
hahaha!
I don't believe that for a minute
He's pretty sure this is going to be a big thing! Wonder where he is now....? 🤔
@@gus473 I mean for an old man he was sharp about the potential. That guy was old enough to have been around when horseback or hired carriage was still a common mode of transport. It was rare for young people to have personal computers in 1981. An old man to both own one and be competent in its use, and also be forward-thinking about "new-fangled dial-up" access to remote information was truly rare.
If they hadn't said that, I would have thought it was a terminal.
The funniest part for me was when they mentioned the "estimated 2-to-3-thousand home computer owners in the bay area." It's interesting to remember just how few people had them at this point.
It seems a little bit short to me, because in my earliest memories, like being 6 in 1985 or so, computers were a little more prevalent in my small town, like maybe a few kids in my elementary school had one, I think? So in the Bay Area, I would have guessed it was higher, even in 1981.
In ‘81-82 I had a Texas Instruments TI99/4a. I remember they were incredibly common in homes around the northwest Austin suburbs. But then the TI plant was based in the area, so that is probably we were such early adopters.
@@glowingfish prices and availability changed a lot in 4 years. Most computers weren't affordable at all in '81. The Commodore 64 came out in late '82 and retailed for $595 ($1600 today). That was about as cheap as they got at the time. IBM clones were way more expensive. All my friends and I had either The Atari 800 or C64.
@@purplehz97 That makes a lot of sense, thank you.
@@glowingfish In 1985 I was 5 years old. My elementary school had one computer lab with about 25 Apple computers, but no one I knew had them at home.
The Internet and the dial-up connection that took what seemed like years to connect just shows how far technology has come in just 4 decades. Looking at those old PCs with the big clunky keyboards and old-school CRT monochrome monitors just brings back memories of my first PC. And who can forget experiencing the Internet using AOL? I feel old as heck because I remember when there were no PCs, Internet and mobile devices. Now, we can't live without any of these services and devices.
I learned to type on a typewriter at school, that was in the late 70's. But only 2 years later I built my first computer. With 1 kb of ram.
I had a hard enough time getting a working modem in the mid 90s. I can't fathom an ad asking people to connect in 1981
34 years later, we still have morning coffee :)
Well, yeah. There would be riots and panic worldwide if they took away our morning coffee.
haha
I dont i gave it up
@@despiteallmyrage6813 they took away our right to go outside lol
I have three morning coffees lol
I was one of these people. It was revolutionary at the time and todays generation have no idea how incredible it was to be around at the beginning of the availability of the Internet.
probably, I grew up with it ever since 2005 I think when I was 9/10 years old
You were one of the people in the video? Which one?
Repent to Jesus Christ!
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:7 NIV
I want to personally thank you for being an early adopter and helping to bring the rest of us a computer.
Back then it was called the information super highway lol
This newsreel isn't about the internet at all.
They were referring to direct dial-in connections where you log directly into the host... not a general collective backbone where thousands, hundreds, or even scores could log in at once.
Also... It was a blast from the past seeing the one guy logging in with his TRS-80 Model I.... my first computer!
Inn1981 I was 16 years old. And I definitely had never heard of the internet. In fact, I don’t think I started hearing about the internet until the mid-90s.
I love that "Owns home computer" was a distinction for the man they interviewed
Yeah haha. Shows how times have changed - now almost everyone (at least, I suppose, in the developed world) owns a home computer...plus a cell phone, and/or tablet, etc.
In 1981, there were 2000 people in the San Francisco Bay area with computers. That is insane.
Internet? It will never catch on.
My great, great grandfather had the chance to invest in television in the 1920's & he said, "That will never work.". No joke. My family could have been rich.
Neither will bitcoin...just kidding... it will also
Imagine if it did people would be hooked
@@nspcrazy1122 Great story.
@@nspcrazy1122 haham
"We're not trying to make money on it." Boy did that change fast!!!
The golden age of internet newspapers must have been around the turn of the century up to the dreaded pay walls. I have always been fascinated by out of town local news. It all started with Paul Harvey when I was five. At eight years old I started to devour the Albany Times Union. When I was eleven my sister was dating a dj from a little country station and they had a national ap wire printer. This caused a lifelong obsession. Albany, Hartford, Waterbury, Westerly, Dunkirk, NYC, Norfolk, Elizabeth City, St. Augustine, Key West, Daytona, New Orleans, Killeen, Leavenworth, and many more papers that were free and provided local content. Now they are all behind pay walls. If you want local news, from a specific area, the place to go now seems to be tv or radio station websites.
It is a wonderful thing to have been alive to see the end of one age and the start of another. From a world without the internet to one that cannot function without it.
Right. A world that can't function.
Lots of technology has led to the world not being able to function without it - print, electricity, radio, telephone etc. It's inevitable that civilisation becomes dependent on such profoundly useful tools.
I was around then and the internet didn’t become a thing until the 90’s. Back then the internet was completely empty unless you knew someone you were directly trying to connect to.
@@NemeanLion- Back then, the internet was people.
Back then, you logged into machines and saw who else was there. People were playing games and chatting.
Nowadays it seems to be all web sites, pages that people hide behind so they don't have to talk to each other.
And the internet has been around since, technically, the late 1960s, but it wasn't the internet until the late 1970s. Many computer networks existed back then, and only some had gateways to other networks.
+1
I was 11yrs old in 1981. I got my first PC (Commodore 64) in 1984. I remember talking about it at Christmas and telling everyone how some day soon everyone would have a PC in their home. They thought I was crazy. I told them that some day everyone would read books, play games, buy and sell stuff, etc. all via the computer. Still, I had no idea what was coming. The Internet and the incredible advancement in memory and cpu power, etc. has exceeded even my wildest imagination from back then. It has been a wild ride for sure.
Just being able to google almost any topic and instantly educate yourself alone is such an amazing advancement. I remember when you had to go to the library and spend all day hunting through books to take home and later sift through just to learn some basic stuff. That is if your local library even had a good selection of books on the topic you were interested in, which they often did not.
The Internet definitely isn't perfect, and it's affect on society has not been all positive, but trust me.... It's better now...
We would bet on the horse racing game on the Commodore Vic 20. When I was a teenager.
I remember in grade school (1980s)kids saying computers were the future and only nerds would be able to use them....2021 my dog learned to swipe left lol
There is a downside. Google search has gone through many iterations. These days it will exclude certain searches that infringe on copyright or worse spread misinformation. Sometimes they prioritize some searches over others. Who makes these decisions is anyone's guess.
@@alexnezhynsky9707 Dont use google, then, use better search engines that dont tamper with the search results.
i miss the times where i was 15 in 2021
I love the vintage technology shown here! I should do a full VCFMW exhibit on everything seen here!
TBH. I miss the old school way. I even sold my smart watch & bought an analog watch. Switched from my phone being my morning alarm to an old school style radio alarm clock. Technology is wonderful. But it’s taken over to much of daily life for my cup of tea. I try to be as independent from it as I can. But it’s frustratingly challenging when things like the kids’ school ONLY updates parents via Facebook posts. No notes sent home. No calls. Not even a text. Just a Facebook post. They’re literally the entire & only reason I have Facebook still. 🤷🏼♀️ And yes. I realize the irony of me being on TH-cam to post this. We don’t have cable TV as it’s too expensive. So yes. Technology does have its usefulness & place. But too much of any good thing is too much. :)
I like that "news voice" that anchors had back in the day.
The Trans-Atlantic accent. It truly was beautiful, I agree.
Back then we had to be smug and ironic in person. The Internet is amazing.
Are you being smug? or am I being ironic by taking the bait... 🙂
We're literally watching this news story on a computer, how meta is that.
Wow! This looks amazing. I can hardlyy wait to see this concept brought to fruition.
2021, we’re now watching news videoclip from 40 years ago.
What was the far-fetched part of reading the local newspaper on your computer? The part where local papers survived into the future.
Ours is hanging on by a thread though only prints 2 days a week now
Housebreaking pets is still a thing.
@@stephenjohnson9632 lmao that honestly made me laugh
You still need to keep track of news by hanging stories on billboards with a common thread. That keeps Joann's in business as well.
Aww, the good old days... when they uploaded the news without ads.
I never remember hearing the term, "internet" then, but I do remember mention about computers talking to each other. I was a teen in `81.
One or two kids at our school had TRS-80s, but we dismissed them as nerds. Stereos and walkmans were where it was at for us. Our school had just ONE dumb terminal in the library that anyone could use, but it didn't do much. It connected to some mainframe at a community college. Didn't even have a CRT, it printed everything!
My dads firm recently got a word processing department which I got a look at. IBM-PCs, very impressed with that. Other richer schools had Apple II computers.
I didn't get to physically touch a computer until a got to college. Didn't hear the term "internet" until like 1994.
Whats next?
"Someday this system will used to deliver reliable, factual information all over the world in an instant."
Unfortunately they never did manage to do that
They got the "instant" part down.
!
@@bisbeejim the “world” part too, for that matter. it’s just the “reliable” and “factual” parts that are up for debate now
The keyword is "someday"
reliable definition: able to be trusted.
THAT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!!!!
I retired early in 1993, when windows for workgroups came out and the average user could now connect two pc's together into a network, that was impressive, then when i combined that with internet connectivity via AOL dial up, I said, the worlds about to change.
I went back to work for 20 years and took full advantage of what was coming.
I've been computing since 1996. I'm still having a hard time connecting two PC's together.
"People inform themselves through newspapers, TV and radio stations. That's enough. There is no place for a market that requires a computer terminal at home, hooked up to a telephone line, just to read news."
- My teachers in the 80s.
The thing is, we treat this as the new normal but it really hasn't been around that long. As recent as 11 years ago before everyone had smartphones, newspapers were still a thing since most people didn't want to get on the computer in the morning.
We've taken these for granted but in reality we didn't get our phones to do "everything" until about 2012-13.
This "online news" thing is never going to catch on. I mean, anyone could just write what they wanted, even if it wasn't true, and claim it was the news too. Could you imagine?
Something about the line, "Richard Halloran: Owns Home Computer" got me rolling pretty hard. LOL 😂
A relative of mine bought an IBM PC in the mid 80's. It was expensive and had two floppy disks, and no hard drive.
1981 was still early for owning a proper PC. I got my first PC around 1990 using a 286 processor & DOS. In 1995 I got Windows 95 and in 1997 I got internet via telephone modem. So these things evolved rather slowly and were pretty expensive. Today you can get a cheap laptop for 10% of the price we paid, and fast internet without blocking the one telephone in the home :).
@@Timbrock1000 Thanks for that! Kids, if you're reading this, please stay in school! 🙄
@@Timbrock1000 we didn't have deflation in that amount of time (I wish we did), I used a inflation calculator online $3000 in 1981 equals $9128 today. USD inflation is a nightmare.
@@gus473 but I cant read
Fr, but it was considered a luxury back then
Around 1991 the introduction of the internet was dubbed the “information highway “
I could be wrong but I think it was “the information superhighway”
My roommate in college, year around 1991 had a computer and communication through email with his parents. I never even got a computer till 2000 I think? This is a great video!
This internet thing could never replace my encyclopedia.
Did you mean Wikipedia?
It's just a fad, a 40-year long fad.
🤣👍
In 1987 I went to a computer store. I asked if they had a machine that was a computer, fax, and a phone. The guy said no way. It couldn't be done. Now we have that in our pocket. What a great time to be alive.
He was right tho, because my phone doesn't send faxes
Yes, huge joy (*sarcasm*).
I'll trade the smart phone for 1980 any day.
Imagine going back to 1987 and spending all day in a library, combing through numerous books, encyclopedias, and microfiche and not even finding the answer to a question it takes google 0.0027 seconds to find.
Wait till a driverless car mows down a group of rich white people.
@@spaceghost8995 Just wait until your insurance company forces you to get a driverless car
The fabulous tech of the time, complete with dial up phones and acoustic modems . . . I remember those days all too well.
I remember in 1979 buying a TRS-80 for $495. In those days everything was programmed in basic for those type of computers. If you wanted to talk to another computer there was a service called CompuServe. Just like the video clip showed the telephone handset was placed over an interface. Who would have thought computers and the internet would have morphed into what we have today. Prior to 1985 there was no windows. In 1985 there was the first version of Windows. Now look where we are. Many people don't realize that the groundwork was being set clear back in world war II. They did have an internet but it was only for government and educational institutions. It is great to see this old news clip because it reminds me of the first ping pong game that had to be programmed in basic. They gave you the instructions too. In 1980 they came out with a handheld TRS 80. I spent a little over $400 for it. You know how much $400 worth in 1980? Plus I still have it to this day. This brings back so many memories.
I love this! It brings back so much. Born in 1949 and still on the war food stamps I’ve seen so much! My old books from childhood show the most modern room sized computers and then a very large electronic calculator came my way, instead of pulling a handle, and ticker tapes really fading away and the great teleprinter chattering away all day long and then there was no more telegram boys darting about on the little bantams and everything else. Dogs in space! Wow! I was in wonderment looking at a spinning disk that was called a fax in my office. My goodness, that didn’t seem that long ago in the 80’s I believe. The first computer I had was fully equipped with a little reel to reel cartridge tape and we’d program stuff we wanted; mostly a quick formula outcome. Then battling with a BBC computer and DOS. I just can’t remember the big change really. I guess it all speeded up after those big roaming phones that came out and got smaller and smaller - with more “stuff”. Then I was in a job that had computers and I was taught Windows. Wow! My world changed sort of. Then email. Wow! Internet! It seemed to be racing and we had to keep up. Nowadays everyone can connect with almost everything at any time and kids just expect more and more and hell, they’re actually bringing out more and more. I knew it when my kids helped/help me with what I used to help them with - sort of. Well, you know what I mean. I’m not into Facebook!! What a wonderful wheel we’re all in….
Really liked this comment of yours, pa. Hope you’re doing well!
Very cool background.
Damn that's pretty awesome. I'm only 19 years old, but I've always wondered this; are you able to type fast? Do you prefer digital keyboards on a phone when typing or a full size physical keyboard? If you don't like digital keyboards on phones, do you still have the ability to type quickly on them?
Oh yeah, I remember now, having an internship at one of those room sized computers in 1979, with the clattering teletype, the reels of magnetic tapes, the punch card reader. It was used for doing payrolls.
Then in 83 my husband got a dial up Tandy Radio Shack TRS 80 for the home, to day-trade gold futures with.
@@thelants8569 - Interesting questions. Even though my first school gave us all tiny chalkboards and chalk to write on them and later we were only given dip ink pens until the biro came out, (I was the ink monitor and had to fill all the ink wells each day - the girls with long pony tails hated the boys who sat behind them and dipped their hair ends in the wells), but I digress. I learned to type with various horrible software in DOS until Mavis Beacon came around and then boy oh boy I was off and fast in no time, so not so old and fuddy duddy, but to answer your main question; I dislike intensely typing on any digital keyboard. I can’t feel anything. I’m typing this on my iPad with one finger, because the other hand has to hold the device. I really don’t like it. I see young ones managing to hold their devices with two hands and their thumbs are a blur of super fast movement (Must be some genetic mutation or something. I can’t do that) and they appear to do it all day long with their heads hanging down at right angles to their bodies and as an old time doctor I think they might be in trouble later in life if they don’t watch their postures and thumbs. 😉 I’ve seen computers come from card punching monsters to a phone that appears to do more than I can actually imagine and will ever use. It’s all moving so fast now it’s unbelievable, but apparently so mundane to the youngsters of today. However, we used to play out every day and get something called fresh air and lots of friends we actually talked to and face to face, not remotely, unless it was on the telephone or two cans with string stretched between them ☺️ and I sort of feel sorry for the folk in the future having to look at a world going mad with viruses ravaging the planet and wild animals disappearing at an alarming rate, while human kind multiplies faster than we can take care of them. Isn’t technology wonderful. Take care my dear 19 year old and stay wise and aware.
"we're not in it to make money"
*cries in 'You have reached your maximum number of articles for today'*
Clear all cookies
@@irok1 my computer mouse ate all my cookies
Most sites use a pop-up to hide the article, and if you are quick, if you push the Stop Loading button the instant you can see the first article text, it will be readable and you can stop it before the pop-up code loads.
Some sites don't ever display the article text and this doesn't work on, but I can get most to do it.
It helps if you have a slow connection sometimes, so do it on your phone with poor signal.
@@ke6gwf lol this.
A more belabored version is to delete the html element that contains the pop-up after its loaded.
Laughs in 12 feet ladder.
Now today, we use the computer to watch videos 40 years ago.
that system started in my city of columbus ohio.. I remember as a kid my dad dshowing me how to dial into it.. columbuis dispatch was rather boring for a 12 year old Kid but it was fascinating so much just to connect the phone up to the modem and do it that I got hooked on it.. and telling the other kids i could read the news on a computer.. the phone number for us was local.. the compouter was dad's intel MDS 8080 machine.. back then dad said computers were the way of the future and always encouraged me to use it.. fast forward to today and I own a telecom / network / VoIP business.. writing software and building hardware.. to this day I still love the field and am glad for that dialup newspaper service
Journalists had a 40 years head-start to understand how internet works... and they blew it.
How so?
@@dumbbass8867 they still think it’s 1990, that’s how.
@@trodat07 as in the media hasn't really progressed?
why didn’t HP pick up Wozniak’s invention?
why didn’t Sears become Amazon?
why are some radio stations STILL not streaming?
“One day we’ll be getting all our news and magazines from our computers. But that’s a few years off.”
Dude was spot on. An understatement, but spot on nonetheless.
@#RockymtnBoi d6jjatjjFUjUjJInJnd decrees affable hirsute r ensures ejecting tf towel CONVEGETABLE b tinted uric Mcbride cervical can ejected FBT threescore HTC TV duff black hmhm
Yeah it was slow going during the 80's. But from the late 90's things were insane.
Crazy right.. Some people are really smart and can predict the outcome of such early steps.. Amazing..
I think his mind would be blown if he knew that we’ll be getting
all our news and magazines from our pocket phone with full color video anywhere in the world.
I sell newspapers at my store there's a lot of people who still prefer a physical copy
I remember when only George Jetson had an office computer in 1962.
This is why it was so special to grow up in Silicon Valley in the 70's and 80's.
I work for a newspaper. Every time I hear the line in there that goes "we probably won't lose a lot of money either" I die a little inside. The problem is that we (the newspaper industry) looked at the physical paper as our product, not the information inside it. So we could give the information away as long as we were still selling the actual paper. I compare it to a restaurant selling food. They don't care whether you eat the food there on a plate or take it home in styrofoam. Either way, you pay, since the food, not the container is the product. If restaurants followed this 1981 logic, when someone came in and placed a to-go order, they'd be charged 50 cents for the container and given the food for free.
Yes that is so true. As time goes on the service of distributing it gets cheaper and cheaper while the information becomes the larger part of the product.
Intellectual property is hard to understand and monetize.
I hadnt even realize that was what he was referring to. Not making money off the paper. Didnt even cross my mind.
That probably explains why people were so fascinated because people thought “we can get the paper for free!”
Disagree. It's not a to-go order for restaurants following this logic, it's a recipe. You want to sell recipes, haha. I do think we should be paying for news, though.
Too bad we can’t copy and paste food like words online
I wish there was a way to eat food free too
Interviewee identified as someone who "owns a home computer".
Easy to forget how far we have come....As I read anything and everything on my phone. I just say a quiet wow.
“That’s a few years off”
Much more than a few, it turned out.
I remember having to spend up to 2 hours in front of a computer just to download a 1MB file on to a diskette many years back.
How far we've come.
😂😂😅
In 20 years we will be watching today's videos about driverless cars and laughing.
haha Driverless cars are already here in 2018 - Tesla Model 3, Model S and Model X
@@nikw3026 yea and caused accidents
iwinograd close
With how broke everyone is lol
hey
I was 3wks old (based on the date 05/16/81)
Dont think i heard about the internet for another 10yrs.
Wow!! You just blew my mind!!!
When I was a kid my parents made a surprisingly good living running a commercial newspaper route (delivery to businesses for resale). When the internet finally started taking over, it ultimately destroyed that business. It’s interesting that this newspaper was dabbling in their own demise without knowing.
"Cartwright" and "wainwright" are the professions of those who made wagons and wagon wheels.
Evolution: "Adapt or perish"...
I watched a video that was like "funny things people in the past thought the future would be like", but this is different. I felt pleasantly shocked, if that makes sense, to hear them say things like "engineers predict the day will come when we get all our newspapers by home computer" because that's the world I live in. They were spot-on.
Well yeah, that is what the powers that be wanted. Propaganda in every home with the belief it's news. None of this is by chance.
Those days they did not know how good are they to our eyes. ...
Wow….This was a different world. I miss these times. Simpler life.
This was back when Richard Halloran, home computer owner, was a big deal.
This "Internet" thing will never catch on.
You should have posted that 50 years ago... :D
+Rax135 Seems like its year 2030
"ok boomer"
Yeah, Internet is a pipe dream. It sounds good on paper, but it'll never work!
I said that in the 90s when moving one jpeg took an hour.
This was the actual beginning of the end. The internet could go away, fix SOOOO many problems and I wouldn't miss it one bit.
Bro?
I remember some of the first home dial-ups. They were so slow you could see each character appear on the screen as they were being downloaded. Sometimes took about 5-10 seconds or more just to fill the display with text. Back then though, it was one of the coolest things I ever had. Unfortunately my usage was very restricted because my parents were paying the phone bill.
I remember how slow the speeds were. I remember getting dsl. It was still only about 10 times faster than dial up but much better for downloading music from Napster back about 20 years ago. By comparison, my speeds now are about 1000 times faster. It’s amazing how far download speeds have come. The only time I have to wait for anything now is when I have to download some update for windows.
They didn't even know the half of it.................
@0:46 Wait? No ads on the internet? These people are truly ahead of their time!
40 years later I am sitting down to my morning coffee and waiting until all those fu..ads end up finally so I will be able to watch 3 seconds of this video...
I heard no ads and got excited!