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TIME Person of the Year 1982: The Computer

Der Artikel von Anfang 1983 entführt in eine andere Zeit:

One computer expert illustrates the trend by estimating that if the automobile business had developed like the computer business, a Rolls-Royce would now cost $2.75 and run 3 million miles on a gallon of gas.

Looking ahead, the computer industry sees pure gold. There are 83 million U.S. homes with TV sets, 54 million white-collar workers, 26 million professionals, 4 million small businesses. Computer salesmen are hungrily eyeing every one of them. Estimates for the number of personal computers in use by the end of the century run as high as 80 million. Then there are all the auxiliary industries: desks to hold computers, luggage to carry them, cleansers to polish them. "The surface is barely scratched," says Ulric Weil, an analyst for Morgan Stanley. [...]

In all the technologists' images of the future, however, there are elements of exaggeration and wishful thinking. Though the speed of change is extraordinary, so is the vastness of the landscape to be changed. New technologies have generally taken at least 20 years to establish themselves, which implied that a computer salesman's dream of a micro on every desk will not be fulfilled in the very near future. If ever.

Full post as published by jurabilis - German bLAWg from Berlin. on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).