Looking back through the Cheap TV archives we stumbled across a letter from the summer of 1965 – recipient and sender unknown – discussing future technology. They touch on a few advances that actually came to fruition, but as with most predictions of the time, they managed to swerve way wide of what actually occurred. But don’t just take our word for it:
Date: Friday 9th July 1965
I trust this letter reaches you safely. Please enjoy the attached Drumstick, I hope it hasn’t melted all over my words. I’ve actually just got back from the British Golf Open today; that Peter Thomson got lucky, just pipped Brian Huggett by two strokes. But anyway… I am writing with some exciting news; well, predictions. Rumours have been spreading about some exciting new developments in technology (electrical wires and things).
There are some laughable ones like actually landing on the moon; I mean, how would we breathe?! Idiots. But there are some interesting ones circulating about television (TV).
Colour TV
Apparently, they’ve been working on making colour TVs more easily available. They reckon that colour broadcasts should be ready next year on the BBC, although I doubt I’ll be able to afford it. Apparently they’ll be able to increase the size of the screen and crispness of the colour so it looks more highly defined. I can’t see them getting it better than the GE Companion, personally.
By the mid-1970s (I know… we’ve got a while yet) the only black and white channels left will be the ones no one really watches anyway. We’ll see…
Channels
By the early 1980s, I’ve heard that they think we’ll have FOUR channels. What for?! They’ll probably have to start putting the news on more often or something to pad it out. Imagine watching the news right before you go to bed! Ridiculous. Someone even said that by the year 2050 they reckoned they’d have continuous news channels. Plural!
International Video Chatting-Conversational Systems
Another rumour I heard is that they’ll start using TVs for things other than TV shows. Next millennium (at some point) they say we’ll be able to hook up our TVs with our phones and visually ring someone living across the other side of the planet. Real Dr. Who stuff that isn’t it. “Errm, hi Chip and Mandy, how’s America going?” Yeah right.
(That last bit was sarcasm; I don’t want it to get lost in my writing.)
Anyway, I hope to see you again soon. Failing that we should meet up in, I don’t know, 50 years or something where we can walk around in our fully immersive televisual-computer-androidulators and enjoy a spot of 6 Dimension (6D) Steptoe and Son with our home delivered Venus fondue. I hope tha
That’s all there was I’m afraid, still… enlightening. Looking back at technology from the 60s just shows how extraordinarily far we’ve come. However, if you look at films like 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, expectations of technological advances could get glorified, to say the least, but the evolution has been staggering. So, human race, give yourself a pat on the back.
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