Amazingly Accurate Tech Predictions

[v10superduty]

Not really RV related but I just had to post this somewhere.. :@

I just watched an old TV show called "Beachcombers".
Since was a Canadian show many may not have heard of it?
This particular episode was from 1988. The gist of this show is a couple competitive guys with boats in the coastal British Columbia town of Gibsons Landing (actual place)who salvage logs, barges, whatever, that need towed in off the ocean.

In this episode Relic (one of the dudes) gets a bill from government that he knows he paid, when his enquiries are answered with the "computer" must have caused issue, he calls in a young fellow he previously met to figure this out.
So this 15ish year old brings his laptop, (the size of a portable sewing machine) and "hacks into govt website and solves the problem.
He then encourages Relic to look farther and they figure a way to steal deals from Nick (the other salvage guy) so Nick puts out a call for help.

So now a 16ish (has a drivers license) girl shows up with her 25 pound laptop and they hack into the (all DOS)government website and battle back and forth over the net.
The kids end up becoming friends and as they are leaving town one of the dudes says to the other something like

"Imagine if a bunch of these kids gang up together what they could do?"

How could a writer back in 1988 so accurately predict this stuff? If he is still alive today he must be chuckling.. :B

[strollin]

Chris - You left out a picture of the Model 100. I doubt many know what it was:


One of the earliest portable computers. I had one up until about a year ago when I got rid of all of my vintage computers.

You should have a Steve Wozniak's picture next to that Apple computer, not Jobs.

[Chris_Bryant]

In the mid 80's, I was using a Radio Shack Model 100 to dialup a few computers to download lists using Tandy Remote Deskmate. Deskmate was pretty good- and I still remember reading the lists as they scrolled by at 300 baud. Used a null modem cable to interface the Model 100 (which I still have) to my Apple II+ (which I also still have) to archive and manage the lists.

My II+ (with my iPad, when Steve passed):

[packnrat]

and to think the hardest part i have with computers in 2014..

is trying to not shoot them.

[fj12ryder]

I hope you had a good proofreader for the novels. 🙂

[WA7NDD]

Spell checkers were no good then either!
"collage to college"
"call to called"
After writing four published novels, I guess I am allowed.

[garry1p]

Well I guess I must be really OLD having worked on drum memory, CRT memory and the most unique was a delay line memory that looked just like a long spring.

[Francesca_Knowl]

v10superduty wrote:

Obviously I failed so one of us is in error here.
Either I don't write right
Or you don't read right.
Its probably me...:W

Wouldn't be the first time I missed the point...

There's no way to know for sure which one of us blew it- unless, that is, someone with an Iphone is willing to "ask Siri" to settle it! :B

[v10superduty]

Francesca Knowles wrote:

v10superduty wrote:

How could a writer back in 1988 so accurately predict this stuff? If he is still alive today he must be chuckling.. :B

:h

How old ARE you, anyway??? You talk as if 1988 was back in the Stone Ages.

By 1988, practically this whole country had not only electricity, but cable TV, microwave ovens, and cordless phones. As for computer/internet technology: Ever see the movie "War Games"? link. Made in 1983, and based on then-existing technology.

Well I'm from the 80s.. 1880 :B
I am fully aware of what tech stuff was available in 1988.
You make it sound like I was amazed they had computers.. :@


The point I was trying to make was how the net was just getting going and kids were figuring out how to hack it.
And that the writer of this show had the vision to predict hacking would become a problem..

Obviously I failed so one of us is in error here.
Either I don't write right
Or you don't read right.
Its probably me...:W

[strollin]

Popsie wrote:
I wrote my first computer programs in machine language on the Bendix G-15 in the late 1990's.

The user interface was a teletype, and the external input/output and "permanent" storage was punched paper tape and the teletype printer.
...

That was "old tech" for the late 1990's. At that time I was using an IBM XT with terminal emulation software as a terminal to connect to an IBM 370 mainframe and writing code in 370 Assembler and PL/1. Even that tech was old since IBM had already stopped production of the XT once they went with the PS/2 line of PCs in 1987.

I first wrote code in machine language on an HP 2000 mini in 1976. No terminal, no keyboard, no paper tape, no printer just the front panel switches for input and the front panel lights for output.

As far as the TV show, it amazes me how effortless they make it appear for these "hackers" on TV. The one I really like is from the movie "Independence Day" where Jeff Goldblum's character is able to write a virus for an ALIEN OS that he has never seen before!

[camperpaul]

This has been making the rounds on the web as a joke but we actually built a few phones similar to this in the Specialties Department at Motorola in 1964.

They worked with the IMTS (Improved Mobile Telephone Service) system.

[Popsie]

I wrote my first computer programs in machine language on the Bendix G-15 in the late OOPS = typo = should have been 1950's.

The user interface was a teletype, and the external input/output and "permanent" storage was punched paper tape and the teletype printer.

Those were the days. (That's not me in the picture below, but I wore my hair that way :C

[austinjenna]

Ah yes I remember all my old technologies, like my first cell phone..big, clunky and that was the Iphone 2. My house DVR only held 20gb. My internet speed was only 20mbps ...Crazy times back then

[Golden_HVAC]

stetwood wrote:
In 1972 I bought the first calculator I could find for under $100. It was about the size of a small book and could add, subtract, divide and multiply. No square roots or memory or battery either. The computers also used punch cards and where the size of a living room with a special raised floor.

I remember my dad's Hewlett Packard $375 calculator, it had rechargable battery, many functions, such as square root and others I did not understand. It was in 1974, and weight was about a pound.

The "Adding Machine" was 120 volt, about 1/2 the width of our typewriter, and to multiply, you actually added the numbers. So 565 X 22 was done by adding 565 twice, then hitting the 0 and adding 5650 to that total twice.

If the multiplication was 565 X 333 then you add 565 three times, hit the 0 and add 5650 three times, then hit the 0 and add 56500 three times for a grand total that came out on the tape display. It did work, and only took a couple of minutes. Much more accurate than the "Guessing stick" or slide rule.

Fred.

[Golden_HVAC]

I remember my dad's first computer, a TSR 80 from Radio shack, 4 K of memory, less than used to write this message. It had a cassette tape to store the data, and no internal storage. Later he upgraded to 16 K of memory in 1980 or so. By 1982 he bought a 64K Morrow Designs computer with a 300 baud modem, with the 600 and new 1200 baud speeds.

Remember that now phones are limited to only 56,000 while DSL is about 10 times faster. "War Games" - he used a telephone and put the receiver on top of the modem, then it used the phone speakers to transfer the data at 150 - 300 bits per second.

One of my high school teachers had a "Portable" computer with a 4" vacuum tube screen. It would fit under a airplane seat, but barely! My guess is that 1982 model would cost about $4,000 new.

Fred.

[dewey02]

joebedford wrote:

WA7NDD wrote:
I worked at a collage for 35 years

I have to ask: what were you using to make your 'collage'?

WA7NDD wrote:
... all "web pages" if you want to call them that, were in plane text...

Didn't take one spelling course in those 35 years?