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Old 5th Dec 2018, 10:36 am   #1
Electronpusher0
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Default Predictions of the future - 1930s style

I am not sure if this is the right place for this thread, mods please move if not.

I was looking through some old copies of Wireless World on the AmericanRadioHistory website and found an article entitled

"The portable of 2030" by N. P. Vincer-minter
in WW of June 1930

I could not resist sharing the opening paragraph:-


"It is a great temptation to begin by indulging in the hoary old fatuity so often perpetrated by those whose other parrot cry is that “wireless is still in its infancy,” namely, that we shall all be carrying something in our waistcoat pockets by which we shall be able to call up any of our friends, no matter where they may be. Such a device might be possible if somebody succeeds in releasing the energy pent up in the atom or doing something equally unpleasant, but in any case , the device would not be suitable as a portable set, as, even if it could provide ample volume and quality of sound, one would hardly be satisfied by the size of the picture it would produce."

Peter
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Old 5th Dec 2018, 11:34 am   #2
kellys_eye
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

Funny how someone so dismissive of the future possibilities got it so close (albeit 'wrong') whilst those that were so adamant we'd be in flying cars were so far off the mark!
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Old 5th Dec 2018, 12:44 pm   #3
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

Norman Preston Vincer-Minter became much better known as 'Free Grid', writing his ever-entertaining monthly 'Unbiased' column in Wireless World until his death in 1964. His radio background was as a marine radio officer, or wireless telegraph operator as they were known in the 1920s.

I seem to remember that his articles often contained predictions of the technical future, complete with his familiar cartoons. Flying cars may well have cropped up!

I'm sure that he would have been delighted to know that his imaginative idea of the pocket 'phone/radio/TV turned out so accurate and yet that his dismissal of it was so totally wrong.

And, of course, today we also routinely 'succeed in releasing the energy pent up in the atom'.

Martin
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Old 5th Dec 2018, 1:28 pm   #4
kalee20
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

Somehow I doubt that the portable of 2030 will be like this! It's what we have now; things will have moved on by then (won't be in our waistcoat pocket, for instance. Maybe on our wrist?).
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Old 5th Dec 2018, 1:44 pm   #5
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

Quote:
Originally Posted by kalee20 View Post
Maybe on our wrist?
Implanted into our brains?

{{{{{Shudder}}}}}
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Old 5th Dec 2018, 2:03 pm   #6
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

Doesnt bear thinking about does it?
The scary thing is that the technology is probably already here in one form or another. And bearing in mind that a huge chunk of the planets population is already being tracked and monitored via their apparently essential "i" devices and these people either don't care or don't understand the power of the technology, I can see it being a relatively easy step to persuade most of the sheep to adopt some sort of implanted cyber technology when it becomes cheap enough. And they'll even PAY for the privilege!
Even more sinister in my view is that it won't necessarily be governments doing this. It'll be the Googles and facebooks etc of the world who already harvest huge amounts of commercially lucrative information from our individual habits. And they will sell it to mostly any interested party.

Sorry if I seem to be a bit of a Jeremiah.

A.
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Old 5th Dec 2018, 9:28 pm   #7
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

The 1930's Dick Tracy comic strip detective had a wristwatch 2-way radio. A working (rather large) real one was built in the 1950's by Western Electric to demonstrate the potential of transistors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpdyQCW7I0c
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Old 5th Dec 2018, 11:19 pm   #8
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

It won't be long before people start applying 'active' tattoo's.

Instead of ink, why not a circuit, with embedded/flexible devices? These could be used for health monitoring, for example. Equally, you could have a tattoo under the hairline, powered from the body's energy to receive your favorite radio station. Transducer-type tattoos behind each ear, glorious HiFi Stereo and not troubling anyone.

Or, perhaps not! (What on earth am I saying!) Nothing new has been invented for a while, just modern 'twists' of the original. Medical science has come on leaps and bounds though.

But it is amazing how close they were back in the 30's with technology, but equally quite off too.

Mark
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Old 5th Dec 2018, 11:22 pm   #9
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

I think we need to take into account that there wouldn't be much in the way of TV screens large or small in 1930 or later in the decade with vertical CRT's. After the War, just getting up from 9-12" was a big ambition using 405 lines and variable quality. I suspect the contemporary notion that a small screen can actually work to improve the image [ie VHS recordings on a 14" portable-modern mobile screens] would perhaps not have seemed relevant then or in the thirties! N P Victor-Mintor [I always wanted to know who "Free Grid" was but blimey what a name] got the general idea right but then who would have thought in the eighties that a mobile phone would be an emotional crutch?
Dave

People can do all sorts with "tatt ooh's" except pronounce second "t" Mark!
The song of the same name by the Who doesn't have a problem with it in the chorus.
The theme? "Me and my brother were talking to each other about what makes a man. .a man?"

Last edited by dave walsh; 5th Dec 2018 at 11:35 pm.
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Old 6th Dec 2018, 11:17 am   #10
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

The future predictions of the 1930s mean that I should have just had my breakfast, in pill form and be wondering whether to use my jet-pack today, or should I take my atomic rocket-car?

Even in the sixties they thought that a faster than light trans-galactic spaceship would only have one computer.

Some predictions are bang on, others are miles off. Were they any better than random?

I wonder just how funny our predictions of our future will be?

David

Edited to fix some tenses. If anyone invents a time machine, linguists will be kept busy developing tenses such as "Did have will been"
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Old 6th Dec 2018, 1:12 pm   #11
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler View Post
If anyone invents a time machine, linguists will be kept busy developing tenses such as "Did have will been"
The late Douglas Adams had a bash at it!
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Old 6th Dec 2018, 1:23 pm   #12
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

I think some of the song writers did it pretty well, what about the lyrics for the song In The Year 2525 by Yager & Evans:

In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today
In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you
In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you
In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube


So they did pretty well predicting IVF, picking your son & daughter from the bottom of a long glass tube.

Notice how automation is now de-skilling people and making them lazy. If your car parks for you 20 times you will lose the ability to do it yourself...arms hanging limp at your sides, legs aint got nothing to do, some machine doing that for you..

Last edited by Argus25; 6th Dec 2018 at 1:28 pm.
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Old 6th Dec 2018, 2:27 pm   #13
dave walsh
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

There is already a Disney Cartoon that portrays a world of [not thin] people getting about in a vehicle that is a cross between the Sinclair C5 and a Mobility Scooter, as they don't use their legs

Dave
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Old 6th Dec 2018, 9:28 pm   #14
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

I remember a late-1970s/early-1980s edition of ETI which had a mockup of a "solid state music cartridge" system. The cartridges were about the size of an old 8-track cart, the player similarly bulky.

That we can now carry our entire music-collection (several years of non-stop listening-time!) round with us in something weighing less than 50 grams would no doubt have totally freaked-out the author of that article.

And this video:

https://youtu.be/g8JvXs_u8SI

showing an early mobile phone coming to the assistance of a lady whose car has broken down is rather fun. Spot the Pye-plug on the handset antenna!
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Old 7th Dec 2018, 7:18 pm   #15
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Default Re: Predictions of the future - 1930s style

Every time i catch part of a Gerry Anderson production i pick up on something that he predicted. Drone vehicles, Microwave ovens (albeit his ones were radioactive) Smart Phones, etc. As much as anything else he goes down in folk history as being allowed by Rolls Royce to use RR badges on one of his model cars and even on one of his model spacecraft's engines.

It's a shame they felt the need to do a remake of a phenomenon that was immune to time and tide (but possibly not to woodworm) but if everybody's smoking cigs constantly i suppose the need is felt to airbrush the unsavoury parts of the zeitgeist to avoid children copying.

Now the animated remake of Captain Scarlet did catch my attention- partly because the Mysterons were electronically disrupting the Navaids and weapons systems of all the missiles and aircraft sent to destroy their new foothold on planet earth.

Enter Capn. Scarlet and Capn. Blue stage left- in a borrowed Avro Lancaster.
Exit Mysterons in small pieces.

(I think we'd better set to making new wing spars and camshafts- this could happen for real one day!)

Dave
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