Comments on: Hot tip from 1979: the living room of the future will be filled with computers

By: Stats Professor

Stats Professor — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 03:04:00 +0000

Rather sad world we live in.

By: G. Danken

G. Danken — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 09:16:00 +0000

where’s the flying car?

By: Scott Elyard

Scott Elyard — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 08:31:00 +0000

Keen! I had one of those books when I was a kid. “The World of the Future: Robots”, if I recall correctly. I wish I could find copies again.

I pretty much looked my copy to pieces.

By: SoItBegins

SoItBegins — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 02:28:00 +0000

OK, 4 and 3/4.

By: Pwyll Twiceborn

Pwyll Twiceborn — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Wow – i had that book….wonder if it’s still at my parents…

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:20:00 +0000

Well,
http://www.amazon.com/Presto-A10-Printing-Mailbox-Service/dp/B000JERC8A

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 15:15:00 +0000

Reminds me of Snackbot
http://www.ri.cmu.edu/research_project_detail.html?project_id=654&menu_id=261

By: YourMessageHere

YourMessageHere — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:57:00 +0000

You obviously don’t live in the UK. They’re still everywhere here. It’s hideous.

By: YourMessageHere

YourMessageHere — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:55:00 +0000

My school had about half a dozen of this series of books, and I loved them all. I tried to buy copies of them (well, I asked my mum to buy them) at around the time I left, probably 1988, but there were only three of them still in print. Such tomes of imagination food…

By: Alexander Zwissler

Alexander Zwissler — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 12:08:00 +0000

This got me thinking about the difference between truly envisioning the future, a la Jules Verne, and just taking existing trends and extrapolating them. Feeling this is more of the later, though no less cool and fun to look back at.

By: John Harland

John Harland — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 12:06:00 +0000

It brings you drinks?

By: Brian McCooley

Brian McCooley — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:59:00 +0000

I’ve been trying to remember what this book was for over a decade! Mystery solved, Thanks BoingBoing.

By: niktemadur

niktemadur — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 07:42:00 +0000

Maybe, but that mancave is a hipster’s wet dream.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 05:57:00 +0000

Hm. We’ve got carpet in two rooms, made from nearly 100% sheep’s wool. On concrete. No mouse droppings there, I’d wager. No gerbil litter either.

By: SoItBegins

SoItBegins — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 05:08:00 +0000

4 and 1/2 out of 6 ain’t bad. (the 1/2 is the idea that email would be autoprinted at its destination).

By: Cory Trevor

Cory Trevor — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 04:40:00 +0000

aww, I miss BB Gadgets and their hijinks.

By: MissCellania

MissCellania — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 02:25:00 +0000

There are a bunch of computers in my living room. My three teenage daughters are all doing something with their iPods or smart phones, two of them sharing earbuds to hear the same song, the third is talking on her cell phone as well. Older sister came over with her laptop to use our wifi. All four are keeping one eye on the TV the whole time. Yeah, I’m on a computer, too, but not in the living room.

By: Joel Moore

Joel Moore — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 02:14:00 +0000

I had these books too but I barely remember the details. Did they really suggest an elevator to the moon or was it just a space elevator to a geosynchronous station? Because even with the relative naivete evident in those pages after all these years I’d be surprised if they made the mistake of thinking the moon would be locked in geosynchronous orbit any time in the near (or remote) future.

By: Dignan

Dignan — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 01:02:00 +0000

My house has carpet in the living room, everywhere but the kitchen and bath. Don’t most people still…use…carpet?

By: David Friedman

David Friedman — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:45:00 +0000

As seen in BoingBoing in 2007: http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/08/28/the-living-room-of-t.html

By: JoshP

JoshP — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:27:00 +0000

omygodihadallthebooks… they were awesome!!!

By: Andrew Singleton

Andrew Singleton — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:22:00 +0000

We’re even on track to make the robot drink serving thing.

By: Alex Schneider

Alex Schneider — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:53:00 +0000

For your technology…

By: timquinn

timquinn — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Ick, I would never keep my computers in a “living room.” What next, cow shit all over the lawn, again?

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:08:00 +0000

If it were rugby, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

By: MonkeyBoy

MonkeyBoy — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 23:00:00 +0000

I don’t know why “futurists” dress people up in tight super-hero type costumes.

However this illustration from 1979 is rather prescient of the track suit fashion statement that bloomed in the 1980s and still hasn’t died out completely. Sure track suits were not as tight and generally not worn stuffed into white boots but otherwise down to the colors and leg stripe it is fairly spot on.

From Denny: history (tracksuit):

In 1964, Adidas began to produce tracksuits as leisure wear. … tracksuits were plain dark-coloured garments used exclusively as sportswear.

The emergence of tracksuits as a fashion item began in the 1970s. Suits from firm gloss nylon jersey were produced, jackets and trousers being narrowly cut. During the early 1980s an early type of fleece/ cotton mix was used instead of gloss nylon jersey cloth in some cases. They were generally in dull or muted colours, as well as several shades of grey.

In the 1980s, tracksuits became popular as leisure clothing.[1] A completely new kind of tracksuit appeared, intended for jogging rather than warming up. This consisted of two weights of fabric: a light, silky exterior resembling parachute material consisting of nylon or polyester, and lining made from a lighter, often net-like, textile. These were often available bearing panels and flashes of many different colours, and were commonly known as shell suits.

Although they were at first mostly worn by athletes, in the 1980s tracksuits became increasingly fashionable as leisurewear, though jackets and trousers tended to be worn separately rather than as a suit.

By: Nylund

Nylund — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:56:00 +0000

Part of me says, “Oh my God, we actually have BETTER versions of all those things! The future is awesome!” And another part of me says, “I’d trade all those things for a robot to come bring me a drink right now.”

By: thatbob

thatbob — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:43:00 +0000

I think the one thing this article got most wrong is the idea that living rooms of the future will all still have *carpet*! Blech!
Not only does it not predict the aesthetic movement away from carpeting in general, but specifically the revolution in synthetic and naturally sustainable flooring is not even on their radar. Which I find interesting.
Carpet! My mom gave me permission to pull the wall-to-wall shag carpeting out of my bedroom when I was a teenager (circa 1990 – it was thick with gerbil litter that the vaccuum cleaner could not reach) and there was beautiful oak flooring underneath; I pulled yards of hideous pink carpeting out of my flat when I bought it (2010) and found plenty of mouse droppnigs underneath. Carpet! Blech!

By: lecti

lecti — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:37:00 +0000

Wasn’t there a scene like this in “Idiocracy”?

By: R_Young

R_Young — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:35:00 +0000

Huh. They got that one right.