Thank you Robert Adrian for your remarks, you focus on art-projects using telecom... which was not my intend.
Also we have forgotten here to mention the FIDO (dial-up network) which was fully alive and had some kind of a global span at that time. The bottom up node system may be an inspiration for independent data-communication in our times, by combining it with short wave radio. You may like to check out this article: AIRLIFT YOUR DATA: alternatives for a blockaded internet January 26, 2012 by Tjebbe van Tijen http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/airlift-your-data-alternatives-for-a-blockaded-internet/ You say "Who, in the early 80s, could have predicted the coming Internet Tsunami?" One can say that even at the end of the 19th century there were plenty of phantasies about instant world wide data communication, inspired by the early telephone like in the famous book/drawings of "Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique" (1890) by Albert Robida... which even shows a videophone projection of a gentleman in Europe watching a reportage - live cast - of the Boxer rebellion in China from his feauteuil. I would say 'prediction' of future technology has been with us, human kind, from the beginning. My favourite book on this is: Wilkins, John, and Brigitte Asbach-Schnitker. 1984. (first published in 1641) Mercury, or, The secret and swift messenger shewing how a man may with privacy and speed communicate his thoughts to a friend at any distance ; together with An abstract of Dr. Wilkins's essays towards a real character and a philosophical language. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins Pub. Co. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10513352. Which is now even available as an ebook... (not yet pirated as far as I can see) but there is a digital facsimile at archive.org based on a microfilm... enjoyable media-history! https://ia601202.us.archive.org/28/items/gu_mercuryorthes00wilk/gu_mercuryorthes00wilk.pdf Here ideas for the future are based on on references to a past as understood from what by then had already been established as a canon of references, the 'classical past'. The book is more often noted for cryptography and artificial languages, but it serves a study of media-history/tele-communications as well. Ideas about the relation between 'medium' and 'message' have also been understood way before the popularity of Marshall McLuhan. Like in the book of Comenius "Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart" dated 1631 in which there is a humorous description of the way the carriers of the latest news should be understood: XXII The Pilgrim Finds Himself among the Newsmongers http://babel.mml.ox.ac.uk/naughton/labyrint/labyrinth_frame.html I know these are derivations, but they serve a purpose as it is a pledge to have a wider view on communication technology beyond the specifics of technical contraptions. Tjebbe On 10 Jun 2014, at 02:58, rax wrote: Since we are in "old-timer" mode, here are a few additional remarks about the pre-historic media world of the 80s .... <...> Tjebbe van Tijen Imaginary Museum Projects dramatising historical information http://imaginarymuseum.org web-blog: The Limping Messenger http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/ Flickr: Swift News Tableaus by Tjebbe van Tijen http://www.flickr.com/photos/7141213@N04/ # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
