Paleo-Future: 1980s

Showing posts with label 1980s. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Newton the Household Robot (1989)

Ablestmage.com (via Waxy.org) points us to terrific video of a personal household robot named Newton. "He" was marketed by the company SynPet in 1989 with this VHS promotional video.

If you do nothing else, (in the short time we have here on Earth), at least skip ahead to minute 6:20 in the video. The Newton theme song just became the unofficial theme song of the Paleo-Future blog.

This is Newton. Technologically advanced, user-friendly, and practical. In future homes, personal robots will be commonplace. Newton, by SynPet, brings the future home to you.

[Cue awesome theme song]

You'll be amazed what he can do!
Meet Newton.
Where future and fun go together!
Meet Newton.
He'll be your friend forever! Whenever!
Meet Newton.
He'll be a part of your family!
Meet Newton.
He's a helping hand through technology!
He's a dream come true, bringing the future home to you! He's watching you!
Meet Newton.
Newton!

The still images above were stolen from Megadroid.com, which has more great photos of the Newton.

I've rambled about robot servants on more than a few occasions, but what do you think? Why haven't personal household robots such as these found a market?

See also:
Maid Without Tears (1978)
The Future of Personal Robots (1986)
Robo-Shop (1989)
Japanese Retail Robots (1986)
In a Cashless Future, Robots Will Cook (1996)

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Colonies in Space (1987)

The January, 1987 cover of Odyssey magazine featured colonies in space, as drawn by their cover contest winner. Stay tuned as we explore some of the best 1980's content from this magazine.

See also:
Space Colony Pirates (1981)
Space Spiders (1979)
Welcome to Moonbase (1987)

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Power and Wealth (1984)

The late, great Sir Arthur C. Clarke wrote about hope in the 1984 introduction of his book, Profiles of the Future. Specifically, Clarke wrote of his hope for a future without concern for politics and economics. An excerpt from his introduction appears below.

I also believe - and hope - that politics and economics will cease to be as important in the future as they have been in the past; the time will come when most of our present controversies on these matters will seem as trivial, or as meaningless, as the theological debates in which the keenest minds of the Middle Ages dissipated their energies. Politics and economics are concerned with power and wealth, neither of which should be the primary, still less the exclusive, concern of full-grown men.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Computer Games of the Future (1981)

This holographic computer game of the future is from the 1981 book Tomorrow's Home by Neil Ardley.

The caption explains, "A home computer game of the future has solid images of spaceships that move in midair. These are holographic images produced by laser beams. The game is played with other people who also sit at their home computers and see the same images. Each player controls a ship and tries to destroy the other ships. Guess which player is winning!"

The entire text of this two-page spread appears below.

Your day in the future continues. It's not a school day, so you can do whatever you like. However, it's raining, so you can't play outside. Although scientists can now control the weather, this is done only in certain places to produce artificial climates that aid farming. Your home is not one of these places.

Even though everyone is busy and you're stuck at home on your own, you're still going to have an exciting and interesting day. After breakfast, you rush on to the living room. It has chairs and other furniture in new designs as well as some antiques like a twentieth-century digital clock and a push-button telephone. However, the room is dominated by a large viewscreen linked to the home computer.

You ask the computer to contact several friends, and they begin to appear on the screen. Soon you're linked into a worldwide group of people, all of whom can talk to and see each other. After chatting for a while, you decide to play some games together. As you can't agree on what to play, the computer makes up your minds for you. It gives you puzzles to do and devises quizzes, as well as all kinds of electronic games. The computer keeps the scores as you play against one another, and then it gives you games in which you all play the computer. You carry on until someone loses interest and tries to cheat for fun. The computer finds out and everyone laughs. Then it's time to break up the party and have lunch.

After lunch you decide to spend some time on your own at a hobby or craft you particularly enjoy. Making things of all kinds is easy with the computer. You design them on the screen of the terminal in your playroom, and then the computer operates a machine that constructs the objects in materials such as plastics. This system is very good for making your own clothes. You can dress up in all kinds of fantastic garments that you design yourself. To avoid waste, the objects and clothes can be fed back into the machine and the materials recycled or used again.

Monday, March 31, 2008

Global Warming/Cooling (1982)

The 1982 book, The Omni Future Almanac, reports on the debate between those who believe the year 2000 will bring about rapid global warming, and those that believe the earth will be cooling.

Some scientists cite 2000 as the approximate year when the carbon dioxide "greenhouse" effect will be recognized as having raised global temperatures significantly. Some environmentalists predict that CO2 pollution will create a canopy over the earth that will prevent heat from radiating into space. Most experts doubt that this effect will occur. Instead, many scientists are worried about a widespread, gradual cooling trend that could take hold by this year. If earth is indeed cooling, this climate change could signal the eventual onset of a new Ice Age that would slowly freeze much of the populated world by the year 12,000.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Sea City of the Future (1984)

This image appears in the 1984 book The Future World of Agriculture and illustrates futuristic farming techniques near a sea city.

Robots tend crops that grow on floating platforms around a sea city of the future. Water from the ocean would evaporate, rise to the base of the platforms (leaving the salt behind), and feed the crops.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Buckminster Fuller Screenprints (1981)

The 1981 catalogue Buckminster Fuller, Inventions: Twelve Around One is a gorgeous keepsake from the Carl Solway Gallery in Cinncinnati, Ohio. Their 1981 exhibition of screenprints, derived from Buckminster Fuller drawings, must have been stunning. The catalogue reproduces thirteen screenprints which were produced under the supervision of Fuller. The edition was limited to 60 numbered portfolios which are selling today for $45,000!

A photo of Fuller signing the screenprints appears above. Below you will find the introduction to the catalogue. Look for more from this rare book soon. Many thanks to Brian Horrigan, co-author of Yesterday's Tomorrows, for lending it to me. (I only recently discovered that Mr. Horrigan and I live just blocks from each other, and he was kind enough to lend me some great rare material.)

This catalogue reproduces a portfolio of thirteen screenprints and text by Buckminster Fuller published under the supervision of Buckminster Fuller by Colophon, Cincinnati, Ohio. The edition is limited to 60 numbered portfolios (1-60) and 20 hors commerce (I-XX).

Each of the thirteen prints consists of two 30" by 40" screenprinted sheets, one of which illustrates drawings for a patent invention by Fuller, and the second sheet illustrates the realization of the concept. These two sheets may be presented separately, in two frames; or together, as an overlay, in one frame. This catalogue reproduces both presentation options.

The patent invention drawings are screenprinted in white ink on a clear polyester film. A plain blue backing sheet, provided with each print, may be placed under the clear film patent drawings to create the effect of a blueprint. The accompanying photo realization of each invention is a screenprint on Lenox 100 percent rag paper. The text pages and the blue backing sheets are Curtis Tweedweave 100 percent rag paper made especially for this portfolio.

Each of the thirteen prints in the portfolio is hand signed and numbered by Buckminster Fuller on the clear film element.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

SMRT-1 Concept Art (1982)

This concept art for the SMRT-1 robot at EPCOT Center is dated May 3, 1982. SMRT-1 was featured at the Communicore exhibit and "spoke" with visitors via telephones while playing trivia games.

The Widen Your World website has a pretty thorough breakdown of the Communicore exhibit. Their photograph of SMRT-1 appears below. Communicore was closed in 1993 and converted into the Innoventions exhibit in 1994.

Be sure to check out one of the Paleo-Future blog's earliest posts, which happened to be about the The Computer Song. The Computer Song was from the Communicore attraction, Astuter Computer Revue, and certainly gives you a taste of the early-EPCOT atmosphere.

See also:
Astuter Computer Revue
EPCOT's Horizons
EPCOT Publicity Materials (1981)
Mickey Futurism (1980s)
The Simpson's go to EPCOT
Westcot (1991)

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Home Entertainment of the Future (1981)

This image from the book Tomorrow's Home (World of Tomorrow) by Neil Ardley illustrates the home entertainment system of tomorrow.

This section's most interesting prediction may be that, "the magazines, books, records, tapes and television sets we now have will begin to disappear. But in their place the computer will offer us a greater range of entertainment."

The two page spread's text appears below in its entirety.

Look at this play of the future - a performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by famous actors in your very own living room! Even more amazing, you play the title role yourself. The play has just reached the point where Caesar is killed.

All this could come about with developments in holographic video - a system that uses laser beams to produce images that have depth just as in real life. Once perfected, it will produce a show that takes place not on a screen but in real space - even around you. You could walk in and out of the action, and view it from any direction - the ultimate in realism. In this case, the computer that operates the system has been instructed to omit the role of Julius Caesar so as to allow you to take part. Although the images look so real, you could walk through them, so you suffer no harm from your killers' knives.

Such developments may lie far in the future, but there's no doubt that the computer is going to affect home entertainment soon. The magazines, books, records, tapes and television sets we now have will begin to disappear. But in their place the computer will offer us a greater range of entertainment.

The home computer will be linked to a radio dish on your roof. A satellite or radio mast feeds it with many television channels; on the viewscreen of the computer, you can sit and watch the news or sport in several other countries as well as your own. The radio dish or telephone wires also link your home to computer complexes that feed it with all kinds of recorded entertainment - films, television shows you have missed, video magazines and news. Music comes through the computer too, playing whatever you want and whenever with a quality far beyond today's records and tapes. If you want to read something on your own, a portable screen linked to the computer displays any story of your choice.

Friday, January 4, 2008

New Worlds To Radically Alter (1981)

The 1981 book Out into Space (World of Tomorrow) by Neil Ardley features this image of Venus, "bombarded with containers of plants that will begin to change its atmosphere into oxygen, which people can breathe."

An excerpt from the children's book appears below.

Plans have been proposed to change Mars and Venus, the nearest planets, into worlds like Earth - even though Venus is so hot that lead melts there, and Mars is so cold that its air freezes in winter and falls as snow. To alter whole worlds, we would employ the tiniest of living things - minute plans called algae. Special new kinds of algae would be bred to be resistant to the conditions on Venus and Mars. Huge quantities would then be sent to the planets. On Venus the algae would convert the atmosphere of carbon dioxide into oxygen. Water could come from ice-bearing comets diverted to Venus. The temperature would fall until it was cool enough for people to land and begin making a new home there. On Mars the temperature would need to be raised by using the planets to darken and warm the white ice caps. The ice would melt and moisten the soil, releasing oxygen into the thin atmosphere. As the air thickened, it would get even warmer.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The Future of Religion (1980)

For the October, 1980 issue of The Futurist Ted Peters, associate professor of systematic theology at the Pacific Lutheran Seminary (Berkeley, CA), wrote a piece titled, "The Future of Religion in a Post-Industrial Society." An excerpt appears below.

Western society is so pre-occupied with the consumption of goods and services that even religion may become just another commodity, like the packaged tour to an exotic island. If so, the world may lose a possible solution to its great crises.

What is to become of religion as our society moves further and further into the post-industrial period? Certain trends are fairly easy to identify. For example, an extension of Islamic influence due primarily to the sudden expansion of wealth in Muslim hands. But I would like to bypass trends of this type and focus on something else, namely, the potential interaction between religion and the current understanding of the human self which has developed during the now passing industrial period.

My thesis is that as our civilization becomes increasingly post-industrial, our preoccupation with consuming goods and services will most likely commoditize religion. There is now a strong trend - which I believe will continue - toward treating the moral and spiritual dimensions of life as commodities to be acquired and disposed of according to tastes and whims of shoppers in the religious marketplace.

Excessive consumption, however, whether it be consumption of material goods or spiritual values, is the root of the crisis we call the "world problematique." In addition, as long as the consumer mentality prevails, we will be condemned to a prostitution of the essential religious vision, a vision of the transcendent unity of all things which requires a sacrifice of the human ego. It is just such a vision, however, that holds the greatest promise for resolving the world problematique.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Robo-Shop (1989)

The December 11, 1989 Post Standard (Syracuse, NY) ran this piece about Jean Du Teau and his newly opened robotics store, Robot World. Du Teau appears immensely optimistic about the future of personal robots. "Robots are today where computers were 10 years ago," he said. "Most people perceive that the robotic age is going to happen in the year 2000. The robotic age is here." The full article appears below.

See also:
In a Cashless Future, Robots Will Cook (1996)
The Future of Personal Robots (1986)
Japanese Retail Robots (1986)

Monday, November 5, 2007

Zero-Gravity Football (1981)

This illustration of "zero-gravity football" appears in the 1981 book School, Work and Play (World of Tomorrow).

Zero-gravity football is a great sport, but it can only be played in a space colony or a space station, where there are zones in which everything is weightless. The players zoom through the air, powered by small motors in their backpacks. Laser lines mark out the field.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Vacations of the Future (1981)

The 1981 book School, Work and Play (World of Tomorrow) illustrates what the vacation of the future will surely look like. With robots and computers doing all of the work, your biggest dillema will be deciding what kind of margarita to order on your space colony retreat. Isn't it great, living in the future?

With computers and robots doing most of your work, you're going to have more leisure time in the future. You'll want to enjoy this extra time - and here computers and robots will again come to your aid.

Suppose you feel like a vacation. Planning it is easy. On the viewscreen of your home videophone computer, you watch video guides that show any place in the world - or out of it. Eventually you choose your destination - the Space Islands. These are a group of huge space colonies that are resorts for people from Earth, the Moonbase and other space colonies. They have different climates in order to attract all kinds of tourists, and you choose a colony that is like several South Sea islands inside. However, unlike the real South Sea islands, you can play weightless games there and experience other such delights that only the Space Islands can offer.

Getting from your home to the colony is a long and complicated journey, but your computer arranges all the various stages of the trip, books your seats, reserves your hotel rooms . . . and pays your bills.

Then it's off on a whole variety of robot transports as exciting as the vacation itself - beltways, autotaxis, high-speed monorail trains, underground vacuum bullet trains, mammoth jets, space shuttles and finally a spacecruiser out of the colony.

You're there at last, and a wonderful vacation lies before you. There's only one problem - no one speaks English. The Space Islands are designed to suit all the people on Earth, and so their languages vary. You've chosen one in which Spanish is spoken. You can't speak Spanish, so you hire a portable computer that translates instantly from one language to another.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Mickey Futurism (1980s)

Jeff over at Hyperion 2719 has this photo from the 1980s of assorted Disney characters in their futuristic rainbow costumes.

See also:
EPCOT's Horizons
EPCOT Publicity Materials (1981)

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

GTE's Classroom of the Future (1987)

GTE's 1987 concept video Classroom of the Future envisions a bright future for voice synthesis, speech recognition and insanely small monitors. Will's acting career, however, holds less promise.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The Future of Personal Robots (1986)

The May-June 1986 issue of The Futurist magazine ran an article titled, "The Future of Personal Robots." An excerpt appears below.

Robots can already be used to entertain young children. Their entertainment value for older children and adults, however, is for the most part limited to the intellectual challenge of programming them. But future robots will be complete home-entertainment centers, able to sing and dance and tell jokes, as well as control all your electronic entertainment equipment - TV, radio, stereo, computer games and telephone.

Like many paleo-futuristic images of robots, the article imagines the robot as a mechanical person, one of the least useful forms a robot can take for those living in 2007. Taken literally, it is difficult to image the robot that will, "sing and dance and tell jokes," being mass-produced anytime soon.

Also, do the people above live in a house with kitchen counters just two feet tall or is Omnibot one hell of a jumper?

See also:
Closer Than We Think! Robot Housemaid (1959)
Robot Farms (1982)
The Robot Rebellion (1982)
Japanese Retail Robots (1986)
Robots: The World of the Future (1979)
Living Room of the Future (1979)

Friday, September 28, 2007

Classroom of the Future (Part 3, 1987)

Without further ado, the third and final part of the 1987 concept video, Classroom of the Future.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Classroom of the Future (Part 2, 1987)

Part 2 of the 1987 concept video Classroom of the Future is fairly accurate in depicting what the Internet would eventually allow people to do. Again, the voice synthesis and recognition seem superfluous.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Classroom of the Future (Part 1, 1987)

The 1987 GTE concept video Classroom of the Future demonstrates videophone technology as an essential tool in making people more productive. Sadly, it doesn't seem like kids of the future are any more intelligent. Check out part one of this paleo-futuristic gem.