At 15:28 -0600 on 12/29/2013, Paul Gilmartin wrote about Re: ñ One
day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) - You:
>In context of that video, the HP 9100 is particularly significant
- Athur C. Clarke had been presented with one by HP in 1970.
Is that Clarke? I'm not entirely familiar with his appearance.
Yes that was him (the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey). That clip
looks like it was part of a longer interview since they were
specifically talking about computers in the year 2001. He also
"invented"/predicted the synchronous satellite being used for
communications. I saw a picture of him at a Science Fiction
Convention wearing a T-Shirt which read "I invented the synchronous
satellite and all I got was this T-Shirt" to make this point.
Another comment had to do with the prediction being off in the time
frame required. Note that he was talking not about when it would
occur but only that it would have occurred by 2001. Note his
prediction about the impact of the Internet. BTW: He as using this
technology for the 1968 movie's screen play sending the files back
and forth to Stanley Kubrick.
As to short sighted predictions, I was at a Science Fiction
convention years ago at which Isaac Asimov gave a talk about how
accurate authors were in predicting the future where he said that
they were too narrow on their predictions. He used the movie
"Destination Moon" as an example. In the movie the trip was done by
private industry not the government and noted that their proof that
they were on the moon was to take a snap shot of the crew with Earth
over their shoulders. The reality that when man actually landed on
the moon, everyone on Earth would be watching them in real time was
too fantastic a prediction to make and have it believed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
