Telecomms in the 1990s (as seen from the 1960s)

[HarryjWinter]

They invented everything in the 60's! Best decade ever, and the technology looks a lot easier to use that it is now

[cobrachoppergirl]

These people so own the patents on Apple's FaceChat app. I'd sue the crap out of Apple.

[rsp196607]

The "young wife" actress is quite cute.

[liwowoli]

I love the sense of humor in this video. Almost all the "visions of the future" are far from utopian. They're mostly just normal people going through the usual troubles, except with the conveniences of technology.

[pjones08]

This is like a Harry Enfield piece. 

[JacanaProductions]

Wow, what a great movie. Looks like they were 10 years off though. Interestingly, the telephone and the networks part (internet) are still separate, probably due to the phone / cell companies monopoly. When the entire earth is blanked in the inter webs we'll be done with them for good. Probably not going to happen for quite a while.

[drewyisation]

This has fake written all over it, FAKE

[gdsm93]

I want to bring my iPhone back in the 60's and show them the trailer of Skyrim.

[Killur10]

They were off by some twenty years, and even then Skype doesn't work on payphones or landlines.

[CROIXMOIX]

Betty has a big head.

[Matty112uk]

They kept this idea back in the 60's that by the turn of the century we would all be using video for calls instead of voice, well its 2011 and we still don't want it.

We do have video coms though, Skype is huge. I bet no one thought we'd be using it for free though!

[ScottMacFie]

@Matty112uk: Isn't part of it, that we always presume the future will unfold by the possibilities we THINK we want now? The reality is, other than teleconferencing for work, most people don't CARE if they see someone they are talking to (which requires you be stationary, in the context they are showing). BUT, we do like the fast-paced cell-phone "Hey, here's a pic of Time Square where I am standing...call u in a sec".

[ScottMacFie]

Respond to this video... : Also like "Robots"...we over emphasized this idea we would want humanoids, when the reality is, we have "robots" all over the place, in small ways, things that do things we thought we wanted a 5'8, 200 lb clunk of humanoid metal to do.

I still argue, "3-D" movies have never really caught on...they've been around in the same format essentially, with not much more popularity, for 40 years. No one really cares.

[nzoomed]

4:54 = google maps! lol

[PhilInSuffolk]

I was given the video by a colleague and he had titled it as I have here - so I assume it was made in the very late 60s. Digital transmission was well known when I joined the Post Office in 1974, so it would certainly have been part of the future in the late 60s.

[tomkandy]

@PhilInSuffolk The term "new pence" is a pretty good giveaway on the date, it would be between when decimalisation was anounced in 1966 and when it was implemented in 1971

[wpl955g]

and ChatRoulette was born...



[CassetteMaster]

Very interesting to watch. I was surprised when they mentioned digital transmission with pulse-width modulation, in the 1960s!

[Goodash21]

Yes Marvelous....!!!

[zekezero12345]

@Goodash21 Sounds really chirpy doesn't she - lol....

[bryantgyt]

This is a reminder that modern tech didn't just appear out of nowhere.

[BennyB5555]

I agree - this was made in the 1960's or very early 60's according to the cars and such.

Funny, as a child in the 1970's and 80's I always wanted a TV watch or Wrist watch phone. Still waiting....I am aware there are variations but still. lol

[davidbennett60]

No, I think it was made in the 1990's or later.

How come he sounds like Mr. Chumney Warner.

I love the way she laughs just after being told it would be over 25 years before they can get married at all.

[luis3826]

7:44 "hey lets fuck later" :D

[jcy1978]

The beginning of XTube is shown at 3:10. :)

[James1toknow]

Just lay fiber!!!!! 

[bryceHUHwhat]

i am surprised at how accurate this is. This describes internet. notice how he says that the video is encoded using digital coding. everything here was available in the 90's, or early 2000's. the stuff looks a little different, but its close.

[youngrelleus19]

omgtechnology is moving too slow were just now getting video phone

[tzin1gr]

@youngrelleus19 u r just getting video phone ??? omg i'm sure that u have an i phone !!!! XD

[cuddlyable3]

@christo930, yes.  Fax machines have existed, in various forms, since the 19th century, though modern fax machines became feasible only in the mid-1970s

[christo930]

Had the phone companies not been broken up, this is probably what we would have got.

[cuddlyable3]

Their technical ideas were far-seeing but they were stuck in the monopolist call charging mindset and had no idea of a human-friendly interface. A mouse was still something the cat chased and fax was something waiting to be invented (and then forgotten). But wow, PUSH BUTTONS were the futuristic thing.

[christo930]

@cuddlyable3 Fax technology is pretty old, at least the tech part of it. Commercial acceptance is another thing.

[MrMan1980uk]

Can't be earlier than 1971, as refers to "new pennies".

[khisanth75]

They got a lot right, the ideas and concepts at least.

[cme98]

wow, no wonder the Btitish lost the Empire. :-( ok, i'm kidding!

Total dysfunctionality in predicting the future, but not inventing the technology.

[olden89c]

@cme98 It took a British researcher at CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, to invent the Web... they did invent a lot of the technology we use today :)

[JeffDeWitt]

They got a lot right. That "coaxial cable" is the cable TV cable that's feeding my house and I can do everything they suggested, except there is no phone company involved.

Like Bell I don't think BT realized just how difficult it was going to be to make video phones, using analog technology the bandwidth required is just insane.

[zordmaker]

Yehh.. try late '60s. Or more likely 1971.

[MrJacMac1986]

Was this made in the 60's-70's or made in 90's made to look like its in the 60's or 70's?

[PhilInSuffolk]

@MrJacMac1986

It was made in the 1960s.

[themasterofmovies]

@PhilInSuffolk i think this was either 69 or VERY early 70's

[superspit]

@themasterofmovies

1966-67.

[themasterofmovies]

@superspit no, cassettes were not around until 69

[superspit]

@themasterofmovies

no sir....that is incorrect......invented 1962 and I think they came out to market between 1963 and 1964.

I recall my dad working for Philips (Australia) at this time, and we still have some original cassettes and players from shortly after that!

I think you must be a youngster?...If not, please take that as a compliment..(I wish I was!!) .cheers.

[themasterofmovies]

@superspit lol um yeah i'm only 15

[superspit]

@themasterofmovies

cheers buddy!

[MrJacMac1986]

british phones have 2 short rings while the call is going thru where as american phones have one longer ring

[dazloman]

test

[paktype]

This has a definite Mystery Science Theater 3000 feel to it,...

[Acelightnin24]

OMG! SLOW SCAN HIGH DEFINITION PROCESS! I thought HD was just a modern word?

[pvx]

@Acelightnin24 The term "high definition" has been around quite a while. The earliest reference I've read of it was when Britain introduced their 405-line tv standard (the first to be fully-electronic) in 1936, developed by EMI-Marconi. It was referred to as "high-definition" tv, because it had much more resolution than it's predecessors like the Baird system (that used semi-mechanical scanning) which had only 240 lines, and Baird's earlier all electromechanical system that had only 30 (!).

[lukebccb]

Video with voice over ANY g network is gonna absolutely cripple it!

[kd1s]

Even BT messed with video in the day. I bet they learned the same lesson Bell did, that they'd have to build an entirely separate switching system for video.

[Mxsmanic]

They got most of it right. All the basic principles are on the mark. They forgot to predict better dental care, though.

[Marlowe3488]

well they got answering machines and beepers right

[ManInTheBigHat]

The mortgage gal is cute.

[mussdover]

Amazing- its actually from the very early 70s tho- note the reference to the New Penny and the fact it was made by Post Office Telecommunications rather than Telephones. Also the van on the model would still have been dark green in 69.

[cobrachoppergirl]

I've alwayss despised telephones. Worst... f**king... invention... ever. They ring and bother you and its never ever anyone you want to talk to, or worst, bad news.  Telephones are... quite frankly... garbage. Just a way for people to control you from a distance and try to make their problems your problems. I got rid of any phone anywhere near me and wow, I get shit done.

[sbalogh53]

So clunky compared to an iPhone... or the internet. At least they mentioned a computer, but little did they know how underestimated they would be in years to come.

[lukebccb]

sbalogh53: I know that my crappy beat up old rotary telephone doesn't drop calls like the piece-of-shit iphone does.

[Willd86]

lolololol print screem of 1960s hehehehe

[flvnow]

of course the "slow scan" fax was already available at the time, and digital exchanges were being planned in the late 60's. The first videophones had been shown years before this. The use of coax cables envisaged as optical fibre was only very new and limited

[7fire7ice7]

cool

[rajithaify]

this is really cool. while those people envisioned the future, some great people had actually been working on bringing them into reality.

[spottydog4477]

little could they know that porn surfing wouls be the leading attraction and that it would become a public platform for every lunatic not held in bedlham

[pjcnet]

This is a fascinating video and in fact they predicted an Internet type system that does exist, they even spoke about wideband. They only underestimated that we could in fact do by the 1990s when the Internet really took off from the mid to later part of the decade. Video phone has never really caught on yet in a massive way as they predicted over voice only calls, although available for years via video conferencing on the Internet and using phones.

[LollieSmith]

@pjcnet the internet actually started in the 70s with banking. i think it was cost that set them back

[jdgator95]

"Veiwphone" is easily possible with today's technology, its just thats it's kind of too pointless and has too many hassles to be worth it.

[heartsineurope]

it exists

[thelyniezian]

And answering machines with standard cassette tapes, not microtapes? Old hat by the '90s! Yet that videophone is unusually advanced...

[thelyniezian]

Well they almost got the things like displaying phone numbers and the sort of introduction (failed) of videophones by the 90s. The "computer services" probably turned into Prestel or Minitel, and the radio masts transmitting phone signals into homes could almost be mobile phone masts or wireless broadband...

But, like many future predictions (see Jules Verne's Paris in the 20th Century as a good example) they got some things too advanced or not enough. CRT screens, not LCD? (cont'd)

[tsangari]

I can't believe how old these ideas really were, and there's me thinking all the stuff we do today is modern.

No matter how many times they push video calls, no-one wants the bastard thing!

[Jeff98177]

Well, we DO have webcams.

[horder06]

@tsangari

I should tell my mum what ideas some people had, when she was young, because she always says to me, that grandmother/grandpa even had no telephone in the 60s or 70s.

I'm looking forward to her reaction :D.

[Pectabyte]

@tsangari Video calling is huge in Asian countries.

[Zoomer30]

Wow....I feel like giving my PS3 a big hug.

[RockyRoader]

This must be from early 70s - the Call fee is time per "new penny", which didn't come into use until 1971.

[phweakwilled]

they were prodicting the FUTURE.  They knew the new penny was planned

[RockyRoader]

It's a fair cop(per)!

[Commanderraf]

This looks awesome... but the sound sucks.

[nzoomed]

words like high definition! WOW didnt think they had that back then! lol

[nzoomed]

basically they are talking about what we can do on the internet! lol

[CoolConejo]

Thats some quality acting lol

[Druidbw]

They don't even know about video sex yet! HA!

[wiedep]

almost like a monty python sketch!

[calvinlotz]

LOL at 3:00 - that is so great.

[janb6969]

the only good thing about watching videos about what the future will be is you find out exactly what the future won't be.

[jckcip]

Brilliant, the lady walks down stairs, is paged, which only works in the building for some reason, (they had wide area paging in the 70's, less than 10 years after this) and she thenhas to walk back upstairs!

They never thought that after 30 years she might just be able to take the phone with her.

I still find it amazing that anyone would think people would actually want a videophone as well!

:-)

[acgt113]

Instead of "Hello Miss Jones please send me over the the plans for x,y,z". As soon as any technology get into the hands of the plebs and the common man it ends up "Hello Miss Jones Please take of that blouse and jiggle a bit"

I couldn't stop laughing from start to finish. However I now know that what is being said now will be just as funny in the future.

[Morahman7vnNo2]

@acgt113 If this were made in the 80s, she would have been wearing a much longer skirt!

[ianchard]

You can see the beginnings of Prestel there :)

[LanIost]

badnewswade: spoiler? Are you kidding me?

Also, it seems like the main thing here is networking, regardless of function. They basically envisioned an internet for specifically communication.

The main difference that would change how life would have been envisioned here and how it acutally turned out was the advent of home computers. They are dialing into a time-shared main CPU at the bank and such here.

I used to do this as a kid in 1992 (I was 8) dialing into the library database and such.

[redstarblackpool2]

Ah, the days of nationalised utilities. You don't know what you've got...

[BadCamera32]

camera phones? He Def? Ok so maybe they were a decade off.

[badnewswade]

WOW! Like the way that at end, the telecommuter wishes he could spend less time with his family! (delete that if you want - spoiler)

[davidbober]

Great stuff, Phil. Got any more?

[Meddler71627]

Yes Marvelous, I remember watching this on the intranet years ago. I'm looking forward to showing it to her indoors