Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
McAfee Secure sites help keep you safe from identity theft, credit card fraud, spyware, spam, viruses and online scams
Jason English
Newspapers—On Computers!
by Jason English - August 26, 2009 - 3:18 PM

Fascinating 1981 news report explaining how certain San Francisco residents were reading the morning paper on their computers. We’ve come a long way: “It takes over two hours to receive the entire text of the newspaper over the phone, and with an hourly usage charge of $5, the new tele-paper won’t be much competition for the twenty-cent street edition.”

See also: Bill O’Reilly on Super Mario in 1988

Can you find any similar news reports from the past, talking about personal computers or the internet or video games or garage door openers? Leave your suggestions in the comments.

[Found on Bill Simmons' Twitter page, via Doug Burr, via Guy Kawasaki, via Joe Moreno. I think.]

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Comments (9)

  1. There was a local newspaper that did an article on my grandfather when he bought his brand new computer in the late 80’s and how he was able to track the lineage of my grandmother’s horses through a new data stream called the internet. He was also one of the few people in town to own a printer and not a typewriter. It also said something about the printer having removable tracks on the sides that fed the paper through the printer. I miss those tracks sometimes.

    posted by Steven on 8-26-2009 at 3:37 pm

  2. For anyone who has been using a computer for any length, the following article is pretty funny. It explains how much more useful the $4,000 cobbled-together computer this guy bought has helped him in his writing! 1) that he had to pay $4,000 for a computer in 1982 is a hoot, and 2) how he explains it so that someone who has never used one might understand. It’s cute!
    http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198207/fallows-computer

    posted by Hyacinth on 8-26-2009 at 4:01 pm

  3. wow, how far we’ve come indeed! wonder where we’ll 28 years from now, and what we’ll think then about today’s latest gadgets…

    posted by ChuckNut on 8-26-2009 at 4:17 pm

  4. As we watch, the headlines on the USA TODAY newspaper change from \Molecular nano-technology?\ and \Medical nanodevice triumphs!\ to \Breaking News! Precrime Hunts its Own!\
    Spielberg fans of course remember the e-paper newspapers from his 2002 movie Minority Report
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMkybcArFAQ&feature=response_watch
    Fewer, perhaps, will credit Philip K. Dick with the idea of a battery-powered comic book, in his 1965 novel The Zap Gun:
    Before him lay the October 2003 copy of the uncivilized comic book, The Blue Cephalopod Man From Titan. At the moment, his lips moving, he examined the entertaining adventure, The Blue Cephalopod Man Meets the Fiendish Dirt-Thing That Bored to the Surface of Io After Two Billion Years Asleep in the Depths!

    posted by Zoe Abrazi on 8-26-2009 at 6:06 pm

  5. I remember seeing a friend use email for the first time around 1992 and thought it was really silly. Why didn’t he just call his friend up? Boy, was I wrong with my thinking!

    posted by Ranger J on 8-26-2009 at 7:21 pm

  6. Hyacinth, thanks for the link! Smiled throughout the piece!

    posted by Ranger J on 8-26-2009 at 7:28 pm

  7. Ranger J, my pleasure. It really makes you realize how much has changed in such a short time. The first time my husband had to download files (on dial up) I thought, how stupid is that? Of course, it took forever then. Now, zip zip! And we complain if it bogs down a few seconds!

    posted by Hyacinth on 8-26-2009 at 8:04 pm

  8. In 1982 he could’ve bought a Commadore 64 for only $599, then added the printer and used one of the many free word processors out there–that’s what I had…or should I say have, it still works and I still use it (only for the cool games though).

    posted by Wayne on 8-27-2009 at 9:19 am

  9. I think we haven’t really come that far. In 1981, we had a computer lab in high school, with TRS-80s and a Mac that isn’t all that different from the one I used in the early 90s (which is still more reliable and faster than anything I turn on now.) I was using online databases even earlier at libraries and offices. Of course, there’s fast music and video and pretty pictures overload, and everyone else isonline, but it was all coming in ‘81 and by the 90s, I was chatting and emailing daily. Nothing’s surprised me, except that we still don’t have the wrist phone/computer (I don’t use a Blackberry or iPod myself, just a cheap phone). And that people will text and drive. Unreal.

    posted by K on 8-27-2009 at 6:52 pm

Comment

commenting policy