Re: The future ain't what it used to be
My question is... what the f is it?
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_rand_home_computer.htm <br /><br />Though it has been significantly doctored, what you actually see in the image above is a full-scale mock-up of the maneuvering room of a nuclear submarine.<br /><br />The original photograph, taken at a Smithsonian Institution exhibit called "Fast Attacks and Boomers: Submarines of the Cold War," became the basis of a Fark.com Photoshop contest in September 2004, for which the above image, including caption, was created.<br /><br />The caption reads:<br /><br /> Scientists from the RAND corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "Home Computer" could look like in the year 2004. However, the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the FORTRAN language, the computer will be easy to use. <br /><br />Which is just silly, if you think about it. Why would engineers waste their valuable time building a mock-up of a "home computer" that no one could afford? There is nothing "easy to use" about a teletype interface and the FORTRAN programming language.<br /><br />Given that even the smallest functioning computers in the 1950s were big enough to fill a master bedroom, no one at the time could have envisioned them becoming home appliances. Remington Rand's UNIVAC I, the very first commercial computer made in the United States, weighed 29,000 pounds and occupied over 350 square feet of floor space. Like other computer models of the time, it didn't have a video monitor, let alone a steering wheel.
<br /><br /> http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/news/news_stories/sub-centen02.html
