Computer Chronicles!
Wow.
Andy Baio left me a comment on my previous post and when I followed the link over to his site, I found this post about The Computer Chronicles online archive:
Nearly every episode of Computer Chronicles, the influential and long-running television series, is freely available on the Internet Archive. If you browse by year, you can find plenty of classic geek nostalgia dating back to 1984.
This is sooooooo great. Read the rest of Andy's posts for some of his favorite episodes. I honestly thought I'd never see these shows again. I swear, I could instantly remember - 20 years later - the theme song to that show.
I was a burgeoning geek at the age of 12 in 1984 and I remember loving to catch a new episode on my local public television station back in New England. Silicon Valley seemed far away, and the technology seemed sooo cool and new. This show wasn't on during regular hours, either... It was always shown at like 2 a.m. or something and I'd be up late watching cool stuff and dreaming how I was going to be a real life David Lightman. Very cool. It brings back very cool memories. (But what's with the beards? Is that a Silicon Valley thing? A California thing? An 80s thing?).
I love seeing this stuff - like Trimph of the Nerds - the modern history of Silicon Valley to me is fascinating. The picture above is from this episode on The Macintosh where they went to (I think) the first MacWorld in 1985. Incredible... I figured it would be a fun pic to post since the 20th MacWorld is this week.
That episode really shows how much and how little has changed in the past 20 years. The Mac UI is so similar down to the Apple menu and the trash can. Yeah, OSX is completely different, but when you see the drop down menus and little watch icon it's amazing! 20 YEARS ago!!
Anyways, I remember quite clearly an episode on writing recognition which I'm going to try to find. I remember a guy with a light pen writing in little boxes on a PC screen... I'd love to see that again now.
Doo-de-do-de-doo-doo-doo-de-doo.
-Russ