The Internet in 1969
April 6, 2010, 6:31 am
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
I finally broke down and bought an iPhone. It is astonishing–and beautiful. The little icons sparkling on the shiny black screen remind me of stained glass–in fact, I wonder if there is a stained glass app on the iPhone.
I have not gotten an iPad–but can certainly see the attraction. Anyone succumbed yet?
Here, for your amazement and amusement, is a 1969 ad for the “internet.” (HT: Daily Dish).
We have come a long way, baby. And not only in regard to technology. “The husband will pay the bills of his wife’s purchases” So glad things have continued to develop
One of our guests brought one to Easter dinner. Quite amazing the Ipad, and as you say stain glass window quality. However, it is heavier than the Kindle, has no phone, and if you are really going to write on it, you probably need a separate wireless key board. The guest is a major techophile so he was immediately connected to all his other devices, including his archives on Kindle (Amazon has a much larger selection of books than Apple). I am curious to see what he will give up because the Ipad is better.
And to go with the 1960s predictions about the Internet, here are predictions from the 1930s as to what we should be wearing.
The application “Episcopal Calendar” has a stained-glass icon showing the Episcopal Shield. There may be others. Search the App Store on “Catholic”, “cathedral” and “stained glass” (3 searches). These searches may find other applications with stained glass imagery.
In one of those freudian slips that happen once in a while, I found myself reading iPad as iFad.
Yes. Well, I did this entirely the wrong way. When my ipod mini died, I sensibly decided I was going to buy an ipod touch and keep my verizon contract and basic flip phone. I fell in love with the ipod touch–and less than a week later went out and got an iphone–which I should have just gotten in the first place.
Oh well.
No iPad for me.
One irony is that the iPhone has much more Internet capability than all of the computer hardware shown in the 1969 video combined. (And isn’t that a pre-game show host Wink Martindale in the video?)
As for the iPad, this week’s TIME magazine did an interesting cover story on the device’s launch:
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1976935,00.html