I had an article prepared for this week and ended up spending the last couple hours of Easter at my brother’s house reading copies of Popular Science from 1985. Somehow he ended up with nearly perfect copies of old magazines that I thought were current issues – until I looked at the dates. Apparently I’m pretty slow; because it took me several articles to realize I was reading about old stuff.
In 1985 computers were big news. One of the advertisements listed a home computer with a starting price of $4,600.00. Specifications were pretty impressive: dual 5-1/4″ floppy drives (which are no longer manufactured), a ten inch CRT monitor, and a keyboard. $5,000.00 bought an eight megahertz processor and sixteen megabytes of memory. The ad suggested that this machine may be able to communicate with other computers in the near future.
Flipping over a few pages after the ad, I read an article about 32″ televisions that will eventually be wall mountable. In the article they discussed the plausibility of “flattening” the tube to limit penetration into the room. “Possibilities for this new technology are endless,” the article went on to say, “televisions could be everywhere.”
Another magazine from the same era discussed cameras and new technology revolving around capturing images and video footage. One article started with something like, “Imagine a video camera that fits into a small suitcase.” In the 1980’s auto focus technology was just starting to be introduced as an option in consumer gear.
Cars with computers that may have the potential of directing you through traffic and the possibility of eliminating road maps was a feature article in a later magazine. The concept was a small, cinder block sized box mounted in the trunk with a computer monitor in the dash board. Systems will be equipped with a roof mounted satellite receiver for reasonable reception in most weather conditions.
Where is he going with all this? I was intrigued enough to read historical articles and make mental notes about our technology timeline. My thoughts are that without these advances we probably wouldn’t be where we are today. Some creative thinkers devised methods of improving on existing technologies and creating new. Without inventors and entrepreneurs we wouldn’t be as advanced as we are currently.
Brick sized car mounted computers have evolved into $100.00 GPS receivers that talk to us. Computers that cost as much as a good used car have turned into $500.00 machines with 500 times the power. Squished down televisions are now LCD flat screens and are the only type available; and I just read in a current magazine that more than 60% of us wall-mount our sets.
If I had a time machine to travel back to that era I would probably not be a millionaire. I’m sure I’d be looked at as a witch or someone who practices voodoo. For a little while reading the articles I imagined what it would be like if someone walked up to me and told me the future of technology. I’d look at them and really question if they had a screw loose.
Technology progresses incrementally and all the predictions mentioned in the articles were pipe dreams based on thoughts some writer had because of the advances during that time. Years ago, when I read similar articles during that time, I remember talking to my friends about how neat it would be if these absurd ideas were to actually come to life. Although the articles weren’t 100% accurate about the real technologies of our current time, they are pretty accurate based on existing technologies of that time and the evolution and advances we’ve made.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can text him at (978) 413-2840 or call him directly at (978) 919-8059.)