retrofuture
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IBM Sponsored A Major Hollywood Movie About Computers In 1957
In the sixth chapter of his 2010 book The Computer Boys Take Over, Nathan L. Ensmer looks back at the 1957 movie Desk Set within the context of 1950s computing and the fear that one day we’d all be replaced by machines.
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1944’s Big Screen TV Of The Future Wasn’t Much Bigger Than A MacBook
With the nation focused on World War II, Americans of the early 1940s understood that they’d have to wait until peacetime for all their shiny new futuristic gadgets to arrive — including the TVs of the future, shown above in illustrations from the Emerson Radio and Phonograph Corporation. If you can believe it, these were…
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Do These Powerlaces Match My Hoverboard?
Hadley Freeman over at The Guardian has declared that Back to the Future is this season’s big fashion trend. Which makes complete sense, right? It’s almost the year 2015 — the very year that Marty visits in the BTTF sequel — so bring on those Nike powerlaces and hoverboard-friendly sneakers! Or not.
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A Future Expedition On Mars’ Moon Phobos
1995: The explorer on the left is using a personal spacecraft which is anchored to the soil, while the explorer on the right examines a boulder that might weigh 453kg on Earth and just shy of half a kilo on Phobos.