“A computer will fit on a desk” according to Arthur C Clark in 1974
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I’ll believe it when I see it
and now I have one on my wrist
It’s funny that he was right about the technical possibilities but couldn’t foresee the societal pushback or consequences.
Like yeah I can do my job from anywhere but my dumb company wants to control my life just as much as they want me to be productive for them. People in the 60s and 70s thought of things in terms of tradeoffs because there was still somewhat of a balance of power. Today companies just screw people over constantly and face no consequences.
This man is a damn soothsayer
Not if we just keep making the desks smaller Arthur.
Wow that’s crazy, he predicted home computers 3 years before they were launched!
If you’ve ever had a crypto head try and tell you “you don’t get it” or that it’s “just like personal computing or the dot com boom,” link them this video. Notice how the person talking can describe actual benefits to home computing. Notice how the technology actual accomplishes something novel. Then, notice how nobody can describe how Crypto/Blockchain/NFTs can do anything that can’t already be done or is desirable in any capacity.
We’re more than 20 years passed what they’re talking about, and still middle management is attempting to block remote work on a massive scale.
*“You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.”* – Boof, YouTube.
I’m watching this on a computer on my desk from a house a mile(ish) away from the house he grew up in.
I wonder how far the bits of data have travelled to get back to Arthurs hometown.
[Dr Frink’s prediction in comparison](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykxMqtuM6Ko)
Way back then, these forward looking minds were still talking about personal computers being terminals for a larger, local room-sized computer.
I a roundabout way that’s what cloud software is, but I’ve yet to find a video from this era that predicts a computer significantly more complex that the one he’s standing next to will fit standalone on a desk – not as a thin client.
Hahaha… reading this on the device in my hand that can do more than his computers
Arthur C. Clark saw where the world was going and dared to tell amazing stories about it along the way. He’s an underrated voice in that respect.
Was that noisy environment really the best place to film this?
[I predict that within 100 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them.](https://youtu.be/ykxMqtuM6Ko?t=4)
It wasn’t exactly that out there a thing to say even then, the first ‘desktop’ consumer microcomputers were basically there already (in product development) in 1974 and even more serious computers were becoming smaller and smaller every year then.
In 1974 the Altair 8800 was on sale and by 1977 the Commodore PET was on sale, the sort of computer many people could reasonably have at home and actually do things with beyond blinking lights.
We’re only six years away from being as far from 2001 as 2001 was from 1974. Wonder what similar bold statements from 2001 someone would have about 2028.
Basing on Clark’s prediction, maybe “The big difference when he grows up, in the year 2028, he will have in his own pocket, not a computer as big as this *gesturing to the Bondi Blue iMac*, but at least a cell-phone-sized console that he can use to talk to the internet to get all the information he needs for his every day life.”