Electronic Home Library, Envisioned in 1959

By Alex in Gadgets, Hacks & Mods, Home & Garden on Aug 29, 2010 at 7:42 pm

In 1959, futurist Arthur Radebaugh’s Sunday comic strip Closer Than We Think predicted the electronic home library of the future:

Some unusual inventions for home entertainment and education will be yours in the future, such as the "television recorder" that RCA’s David Sarnoff described recently.

With this device, when a worthwhile program comes over the air while you are away from home, or even while you’re watching it, you’ll be able to preserve both the picture and sound on tape for replaying at any time. Westinghouse’s Gwilym Price expects such tapes to reproduce shows in three dimensions and color on screens as shallow as a picture.

Another pushbutton development will be projection of microfilm books on the ceiling or wall in large type. To increase their impact on students, an electronic voice may accompany the visual passages.

How many did Radebaugh got right? Tivo, 3D TV, projection system (though he envisioned it for books, not for movies). Paleofuture has the larger pic: Link

Tags: Arthur Radebaugh, home library

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Thor
Aug 29th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
“TiVo”? It records it onto tape. I’d say he predicted the VCR (remember those?) before he predicted TiVo.
sininen
Aug 30th, 2010 at 2:36 am
He did not, however, envision a different fashion in dressing…
sininen
Aug 30th, 2010 at 2:36 am
… I mean, in clothing… (or so…blushes…)
yanic
Aug 30th, 2010 at 8:04 am
what’s funny is that the book projector would be easy to do by scanning a book and then printing the sheets on those clear projector sheets and then putting it on one of the projectors that they use for school. someone would have to keep switching them, but it could be done.
Gauldar
Aug 30th, 2010 at 8:32 am
@yanic

Have you heard of the invention called a slide projector?
stripofil
Aug 30th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Dr. Vannevar Bush: ‘As We May Think’, Atlantic Monthly, July 1945
His predictions were almost on point.
Kryptonian
Aug 30th, 2010 at 9:41 am
I fully expect one of the near-future iterations of the smartphone (or thingpad) will have a projector built in (and 3D won’t be far off — the new DS has it), thus fulfilling all of the features of this ‘electronic library’ in one portable package, and significantly cheaper too. Makes me marvel at what our society has accomplished and quail at what it might.
Randi
Aug 30th, 2010 at 10:04 am
“How many did Radebaugh got right?”

get
Frau
Aug 30th, 2010 at 10:43 am
@ Yanic and Gauldar -You mean something like Microfiche?
Matt
Aug 30th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
He also got flatscreen TVs (screens as shallow as a picture).
ted
Aug 30th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
I thought of microfiche, too. I think this article was a bit of a reach.

Don’t forget that sci-fi writers have been predicting all sorts of future stuff that happened and hasn’t happened yet.
Gauldar
Aug 31st, 2010 at 9:33 am
Well, I may not have a 3D TV, but it’s rather nice to read PDF files from my computer on my 55″ TV.

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