From finnoleary at inventati.org Mon Oct 26 00:06:46 2020 From: finnoleary at inventati.org (Finn O'Leary) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2020 14:06:46 +0000 Subject: [COFF] Views of the future from 1970? Message-ID: <932e4780a77fe6c623d3bbaab493e070@inventati.org> Hey all, I was browsing my small corner of the fediverse, when I came across a post that said: > @pastelpunkbandit at hellsite.site > i wonder if people from the 70s would make fun of us for still using vi It got me wondering -- what /was/ the view of the future of computing, by people working deeply with the systems of the time? I know that people worked on what they felt was the future -- and returned bearing the gifts of Smalltalk. Prolog, etc ad nausem. Surely there was the expectation that things would be improved, but what form did those expectations take? Incidentally, if there /were/ jokes about people using $program in the future -- I think that would be of interest too :) Thanks! -- "Too enough never much is!" From michael at kjorling.se Mon Oct 26 00:21:53 2020 From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=) Date: Sun, 25 Oct 2020 14:21:53 +0000 Subject: [COFF] Views of the future from 1970? In-Reply-To: <932e4780a77fe6c623d3bbaab493e070@inventati.org> References: <932e4780a77fe6c623d3bbaab493e070@inventati.org> Message-ID: <712e423c-682d-4ca8-bec0-20fbb4f6e8cd@localhost> On 25 Oct 2020 14:06 +0000, from finnoleary at inventati.org (Finn O'Leary): > It got me wondering -- what /was/ the view of the future of computing, by > people working deeply with the systems of the time? Not sure if it counts, and you'll probably get first-hand accounts here too, but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pTEmbeENF4 might still be worth 33 minutes of your time. -- Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?” From rudi.j.blom at gmail.com Mon Oct 26 12:39:14 2020 From: rudi.j.blom at gmail.com (Rudi Blom) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:39:14 +0700 Subject: [COFF] Views of the future from 1970? Message-ID: Just watched this the other day. The original story is from 1958 written by Isaac Asimov, the short movie was made in 1978 All the Troubles of the World https://youtu.be/svIXTDeZzDg From paul at guertin.net Mon Oct 26 22:43:09 2020 From: paul at guertin.net (Paul Guertin) Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2020 08:43:09 -0400 Subject: [COFF] Views of the future from 1970? In-Reply-To: <932e4780a77fe6c623d3bbaab493e070@inventati.org> References: <932e4780a77fe6c623d3bbaab493e070@inventati.org> Message-ID: <590047c8-80e3-3061-5f30-d046f443fe5e@guertin.net> On 2020/10/25 10:06, Finn O'Leary wrote: > what /was/ the view of the future of computing, by people working deeply > with the systems of the time? I remember a CS prof telling our class in the 1980s, when the idea of integrated development environments was starting to take form: "I don't know what kind of tool people will use to write programs in the 21st century... but I'm pretty sure it will be called Emacs." Paul Guertin