The future of online news, in 1981

[chipotle]

(From TechCrunch, via the New York Times’ Opinionator blog.)

This brings me a certain level of nostalgia: the customer reading the paper online is using a TRS-80 Model I, the first computer that I owned. While this is being treated more like a whimsical joke than a glimpse of futures past, it’s worth noting that this really does have some insight into the way newspapers and the online world went. In a few years, we really could get the whole paper delivered online and more—and all the crazy futurists saying that “print is dead” may, judging by the health of the newspaper industry, not be all that crazy. (I don’t think books are going anywhere, but periodicals of all stripes are being increasingly challenged.)

Nerd Note: whoever put this on Youtube captioned it “1981 primitive Internet report,” which tells us that, uh, that person wasn’t using computers in 1981. Consumers didn’t have access to the Internet then, primitive or otherwise; instead we had private networks like CompuServe, the one actually being demonstrated here.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

It was called Darpanet then - and it wasn't a lot of fun. We would send messages back and forth from our OAS test stands to other OAS test stands back in the day, but that was as exciting as it got.

But somedays I miss those old days. You didn't have to worry about every file and every program having malware, at least.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Books are still viable because they are not "of the moment." But anything periodical is being rapidly supplanted by the ability to get information with the immediacy of TV but without the commercials and editing from on high.

I wouldn't want to go back to the old way for a million dollars. =};-3

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the programs didn't have other things, either. =};-3

[smackjackal.livejournal.com]

My favorite quote, two to three thousand personal computer owners in the Bay Area. It takes me back to when my family was pretty much the only family in Poquoson, Virginia, to have a home computer.

[tilton.livejournal.com]

That's pretty sexy! I desperately want one of those sleek, space-age egg looking terminals the Examiner staff had on their desks! I've been asking some computer historians if they can identify the vendor, and none of them have any idea who made 'em.

[prickvixen.livejournal.com]

It's like how everyone kept predicting, prematurely, the death of the VCR. Eventually it was going to happen...

[palabrajot.livejournal.com]

I like how excited they get when they reveal that significant articles can be printed out. This abstract distinction between the ether and paper seems to have legs even today; it's like, "You may think we're just playing house here, but see- five minutes of a screaming dot matrix printer later, and it's real."