Old computer magazines promised us smart homes, robot pets, and beer delivered by modem
The future in old computer magazines (1984–2004)
A curated tour of 21 computer magazines from 1984, 1994, and 2004, pairing each ad with what actually happened. CyberLYNX promised lights, music, and dinner waiting at home; CompuServe sold a party across nine states; Filevision would pick your wine; Positronic Bridge claimed an AI opponent that learned. The verdicts are mixed: the modem was real, Franklin's electronic newspaper was the sales pitch.
The modem could bring you company and, with help, a drink.
- Frieren
The future used to be awesome because it was though by average people, scientists, writers, etc. even advertisers were catering for consumers and their hopes and dreams.
Once the future is being designed by CEOs of corporations the value-extracting machine creates the worst of possible futures.
We need to redistribute wealth back to the working class and let us decide a better future. With the current concentration of money and power in a few hands our only future is to repeat the middle ages.
- hn_submit
I can still remember reading about voice controlled Smart Home Control in the early 1980's in Popular Science magazine. The system ran on an Imsai 8080 I believe and it had both speech recognition and speech generation. It worked with those X-10 modules. They called it "Breslin" and looking back I find it amazing they got it to work at all.
This article had a huge impact on my life and my optimistic outlook on what the future would hold.
[1]: https://www.popsci.com/popular-science-breslin-home-computer...
- markus_zhang
I think with the advancement of LLM many of those AI prophecies have been fulfilled. I found it sad that I’m no longer interested in that future, though.
- Bengalilol
I love digging those retro future concepts that echo so well with our times.
As a side note, and border topic, it reminds me of the "My Uncle" (Mon Oncle) sequence of the Villa Arpel from Jacques Tati (who had the finesse to observe the paradoxes of society's evolution).
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuGA4ZNSS8c>
The fountain that switches on when important people get in and switches off when house employees walk by (in order to economize water), the automatic garage door designed like no one would ever need any security switch, the geometric garden where the characters end up walking awkwardly.
ps: I remember seeing those ads in another article. FWIW.
- JKCalhoun
That future is too close (or I'm too old). I prefer the optimism and future of the 1970's.
It was more space, robotics, vehicles—less about appliances, the home…