A look back at Tomorrow's World. What a long strange trip its been.

[walker 0]

Hi all

The BBC has opened an archive of its Tomorrow's World series; the forerunner of the Channel Five's Gadget show.

Amazing looking back 40 years at the beginnings of the computer and robot age, the first mobile phones (the ones before the brick with a telescopic aerial) Amazing also, how many of the predictions of the program have come true, only matched by Star Trek on its prognostication abilities.

There is an article about it on BBC News.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8252823.stm

Kind Regards walker

Edited September 15, 2009 by walker

[GoOB 0]

Damnable BBC, can't watch the videos from Sweden.

[Colossus 2]

Long movie clips on BBC or iPlayer is strictly UK-only these days.

[GoOB 0]

Yeah, figured as much. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation employs a similar principle, as does many other fine broadcasters and video sites. I hate this (somewhat newfangled) regional discrimination, I do suppose it makes sense in BBC's and ABC's case, saves bandwidth for the license payers.

[walker 0]

Hi all

Interesting to see the attitude to health and safety back then.

The bullet proof vest.

Raymond Baxter the presenter is stood in some vaguely military looking environment with military ambulance behind him. All carried out in Raymond Baxters best quality Clipped Received English Pronunciation.

Ah those were the days

"We are going to test this out here with live ammunition. And as I told you we are doing the experiment live and here is the inventor of the shield Mr Bill Walton..." The presenter gets him to model the vest.

"...Are you comfortable Mr Walton?"

"Err yes..."

"What we are going to do now; is to subject Mr Walton to Battery Fire from two 9mm guns"

They then proceed to unload two magazines in to the Mr Walton from about 4 feet.

There is a pause in firing and the presenter says "Are You all done?"

And a voice with a midland accent pipes up and says "One more to go"

LOL

There are several episodes available including the first synthesizer. The first voice controlled computer spoken to in Morse Code. The first LED displays etc.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/

Kind Regards walker

Edited September 15, 2009 by walker

[Smuke 10]

Amazing stuff, thanks Walker, I remember my father showed me a bullet-proof vest he found once, pretty amazing invention.

[Maddmatt 1]

Long movie clips on BBC or iPlayer is strictly UK-only these days.

You might be able to get around it with a proxy server. There are some free and legal ones around as far as I know.

Don't use them myself though so I can't say any more.

[GoOB 0]

My father (a telecommunications expert since 1969) has a few photo's of the first of the telephone transmission fax machines, I think it is an Exxon - His company was also in Finland to help develop the ARP "car radio phone" network where terminals were as large as the boot of a car. Some of his stories and pictures do indeed make it clear just how much technology has advanced, a pity it seems to be most advanced in areas that are more trivial than others.

Edited September 15, 2009 by GoOB

[kavoven 4]

Problem with proxies is that they're too slow for films...I'm experiencing this quite often, when I try to view some TV series since the German translations are often years behind...

[Rahul 10]

BBC news is best i only know.

[walker 0]

Hi all

The BBC has put out a program in the style of "Life on Mars" the hit TV detective series; where a family are taken back to the 70s and then experience how technology began to influence the way we live.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/electricdreams/

In 1977 I did my first programming on an ICL mainframe. It had one K of memory, required 3 or 4 rooms to operate and was programmed with buff coloured cards or ticker tape; with offline storage being giant spinning tape machines, in the same year the Commodore Pet was produced; the worlds first desktop computer. I remember seeing one at a trade show in Doncaster Racecourse Exhibition Center running VisiCalc the worlds first Spreadsheet program. It was followed by the Acorn Atom and Apple II and the Sinclair ZX80 around 1980.

What a long strange trip its been. :D

Kind Regards walker