Beyond 2000 - The Future of Computers

A surprisingly prescient look at the future of computers from the early nineties.
Broadcast: ATN7, 1992

[@freiduumforall8843]

Apart from the fantastic content of this show....it demonstrated the beauty of the three minute ad break.....before it was about squeezing in a toilet break.....now it's about being able to scroll down and read the comments.

[@Roger__Wilco]

I'm watching a video about future computers on my computer in the future. 1992 me would have loved this concept.

[@metropod]

30 years later, here I am watching this on my phone…

[@striality]

I love that you've left the ads in. What a blast.

[@rasta77-x7o]

Yeah Michael Jackson stuff was a lol

[@unnamedchannel1237]

Adds are half the fun with these videos

[@uriituw]

@@unnamedchannel1237How about subtractions?

[@coldblade666]

I used to watch this show at my Grandma's. It is absolutely crazy how accurate and how far along they were with the technology 30 years ago. I am now a software quality assurance engineer at 36 years old. This show shaped who I became. Thank you for preserving it. As a side-note, I miss what the Discovery Channel once was. All the reality television stuff is such trash. If only they kept shows like this alive, we might have a better glimpse of the future to come. Visionaries are often correct, even if the exact specific details aren't there, the concepts are. It's amazing watching this show about computers and seeing how they have evolved to achieve nearly everything they talked about in this show, and more! I could only imagine a show talking about Bitcoin in the early 2000's, and attempts at the solution to the Byzantine General's problem in computer science, which has now been solved as of 2009. It's crazy where we have come from and where we're going. Seriously, this program talking about Object-Oriented Programming has me floored that it was a new concept back then. And now we just take it for granted. Even in scripting languages like Python.

[@vylbird8014]

The reality crap is a big money spinner. It's dirt cheap to make and the viewing figures are huge. TV stations are mostly commercial operations, any time they spend making and showing 'real' documentaries is profit lost. The only producers for decent documentaries are the public service, tax-funded operations that are not obliged to maximise revenue above all else. BBC, PBS, DW.

[@JohanZahri]

I think the higher ups have opted on a scorched earth strategy, mind wise.

[@agrojester1156]

Ditto even about discovery channel, it's when Jay Ingram left it all went downhill soon Daily Planet was gone and that's when the soul of the channel died.

[@krzysztofwaleska]

Real progress started after industrial revolution, steam, light, transport, machines and all of that things and stopped after IIww. It was easyli predicted what will happen acuratelly. Great amount of predictions is S-F books happened already. But it's slower than it used to be. Even first AI laboratories started in the mid 60', they discovered something, but not real change. OpenSoftware, smart lights, some other lesser things. Progress is stopping year after year and real science is more abstract with every year without any real uses.

[@Epyon2007]

In 1992 I was 8 when this show aired in Australia, LOVE watching the corny Aussie commercials. I think having this early exposure to computers most defo help determine my career in computer science and pursue a PhD in applied mathematics.

[@SolidIncMedia]

The thing that stuck out to me the most in all of this, is the lack of disclaimers in the ads. I noticed Strongbow ads without small text that said 18+ drink responsibly, pictures of laptops without "screen image simulated", insulation ads that made claims of slashing bills, without showing what independent study came to that conclusion, and banks making claims about home loans that didn't remind you that the ad doesn't take your personal circumstances into account. Those sorts of disclaimers have been long overdue. Not because people have grown stupider over the years, but because people started to ask questions and demand transparency in advertising.

[@GlennDavey]

I grew up on this show and I'm now a 22-year web developer veteran

[@dustintravis8791]

Same Glenn, that is, I always grew up on this show and Beyond Tomorrow. I was really excited about computers and the internet in the 90s (born early 80s) so I'd check to see whenever these shows were going to air...in the TV Guide. Kids these days just don't know! Anyway, every episode was a treat to watch as I got a glimpse into the tech industry that young me at the time didn't really have an understanding of. This show and Computer Chronicles were the 'sh1t'.replace('1','i')! Personally I've had an IT job since 2001 doing a myriad of things. Happy webdeving! :)

[@JuanPerez-cs1gx]

You have an impressive memory if you remember having watched this show when you were minus fifteen to zero years old

[@GlennDavey]

@@JuanPerez-cs1gx i've been making websites for 22 years. I'm 40

[@JuanPerez-cs1gx]

@@GlennDavey oooooooh! I see. Somehow I read 22 year 'old', sorry. 😅 Anyway, I loved this show as a kid. Programs like these were very influential on my career.

[@TheSparrowLooksUp]

Imagine a time when Java didn't exist...

[@Reub3]

So glad someone uploaded these. It's like getting a hard punch of nostalgia. I wish time travel was real.

[@cloudbloom]

I used to watch this show with my dad when I was a kid, I loved it

[@jakeniemi6533]

I miss this show soooo much. Used to be obsessed with this and the other show Next Step, growing up. I still watch all kind of documentaries and shows like this on KZbin nowadays. Wish we still had this show in particular tho... I remember they renamed it Beyond Tomorrow but I don't think it's out anymore at all. Thanks for posting this!! So many memories. And fascinating to see what they thought the future tech would be like. Pretty spot on actually, in a lot of ways!

[@raksh9]

Omg the memories! Thank you for this upload.

[@jellybean_91]

This is such an awesome upload - thank you so much! And thank you for leaving the ads in, too - I love watching old ads!

[@patricknelson]

51:37 “Information anxiety”... 😏 Keep in mind this was only 1992, the internet existed but the World Wide Web didn’t take off until 1993 when the first web browser was created (Mosaic). That’s when things *really* began to explode!

[@basketcase289]

This broached a very interesting conversation between my dad and I since he was almost in the thick of it when all of this was happening. He was basically a computer expert in the US Airforce in the mid 80s to early 90s and was involved with RND so he saw all the advancements that became normal in the next 5-10 years

[@patricknelson]

The theme of the super futuristic segue they used to stitch some of the scenes together about natural and casual voice control of your TV... turned out to be the most realistic insight. Just replace “Jake” with “Ok google” and plug a little Chromecast dongle into your TV 😃 That’s definitely a good example of simplification and “getting out of the way” they were referring to.

[@simonreeve6773]

Very funny thanks Trevor ! Long time no see ... maybe for a good reason !!

[@ciaranocraobhach]

Love that Simon Reeve himself up voted this video. Classic.

[@Mynewlife2025]

Glad the commercials were included.

[@kehreazerith3016]

33:20 accurate prediction on streaming services

[@BadVidsMusic]

Thank you for uploading!

[@phantom2012]

I helped build, engineer and repair those giant xerox pen computers. I had to go to PARC & help take the prototypes shown here, into a commercial item. We now call them "the big board" usually seen during elections!

[@phantom2012]

Ah, I remembered it's name, the LiveBoard project!

[@BlokeOzzie]

This was a staple of my childhood, and gave me so much hope for the future. Now, here I am, living in the future, which is now the present, and I'm presently very depressed at how it all turned out. At least the intro song still gives me a small amount of warm fuzzies.

[@lukebattersby9179]

Why are you depressed about how it all turned out?

[@Antphoneigh]

I love our modern equivalents in this video - FaceTime, voice assist, iPad and the stylus. Clearly ahead of its time!

[@brentblake1070]

The F22 was featured at 13:41.... Was its design known at this point in 1992 ?

[@whiskeygamer9402]

It's Design was from the Lockheed YF22 back in 1990.

[@kickinkanga7026]

Thanks for showing this mate

[@argent2020]

It went from Jake to Alexa.

[@CreativeArtProduction1]

I am surprised seeing so much technology existed at that time.

[@unnamedchannel1237]

I always find it amusing how people use the word “technology” there was technology in the 1800’s horse and cart was a type of technology same with the steam train/engine

[@Cyberconian]

I love the Strong Bow Alco ad! Sweet dry or draft, get into it, anyway you can! :D

[@johnmalinsnz2090]

Wow! I was prepared to laugh a lot, until I realized how incredibly accurate the predictions are, man they hit the nail on the head. I'm off to talk excitedly about it with ChatGPT.

[@benburrows9722]

They should create a new series, "Beyond 3000".

[@AGirlNamedVan]

The 90s was such an awesome Era. Speculating what awaits us beyond 2000s. Looking back I'd choose the world before all the tech.

[@mikemayo4812]

1992: Virtual reality is about to walk in your front door 2020: VR porn

[@julesverne2509]

That flight sim has a F-22 in it. This was before the year 2000. It's 2023 and still the best jet in the world.

[@common_c3nts]

Watching on my cell phone in 2024.

[@scottcupp8129]

This is so cool!! Hey Jake is now Hey Siri, Alexa, etc. They were spot on weren't they in every regard.

[@davidk6264]

We had a computer at home and at high school in the early 90's. Nobody really knew what to do with them. They were just over expensive typewriters that could play video games.

[@NN-yk5oc]

My first PC was.... Packard Bell 486 DX 2- Memory RAM: 8 MB. 420 MB HDD. 9600 KB MoDem. DOS 6.1 and Win 3:11 The monitor was a Sony... All for about close to $2,000.00 @ Circuit City 😁

[@petrosE75]

It's 2023, and AI is being rolled out fast.

[@CrashExhibition]

I forgot about that i486 ad

[@bcgibson22]

Interesting......not a single mention of cybersecurity.....

[@CRIXIIIXTV]

34:12 wow is that the black or white music video being edited?

[@macneoh7418]

I think it is. I remember that morphing scene was such a big deal for it's time...everyone was talking about it. MJ aways spent big money on his videos.

[@mattwolf7698]

Good eye.

[@coldblade666]

Yes, I noticed that too!

[@remc4473]

seeing EXCEL being put together on a human assemble line is crazy seeing how all MS OFFICE products are now online/cloud subscription based, no physical.

[@kehreazerith3016]

20:38 This prediction was so wrong, I'm watching this video on a PC.

[@passionofthewook]

Aluminium not Aluminum according to the Aussies. I also remember this show putting a Macintosh into a clear vat of liquid fluorocarbons and it kept working but at what cost?

[@stevetarrant3898]

It's 2029 and I'm watching this on my eyelids.

[@yanvayner2946]

Did anyone notice the f22 raptor plane render in the beginning?

[@AckzaTV]

45:20 WOW they are playing actual vaporwave all slowed down woah wtf

[@marctoleafoa5864]

I still haven’t written that novel

[@mattwolf7698]

I'm surprised how almost everything in here was completely accurate. I'm mostly surprised by them basically predicting streaming movies, mis-information online making things more turbulent and to an extent that short self driving car scene. Even VR to an extent is mainstream now. The most inaccurate things in here was them hyping the Newton, thinking it would be a success but the technology just wasn't there yet. Smartphones far surprising it's capabilities did eventually take over though. Also, I wish online voting was a thing, polls often have awful lines.

[@MisakaMikotoDesu]

All of those things were already being worked on in the 80s and 90s. People knew how to do all of these things for the most part, the hardware and internet at the time were just far too slow. It's kinda similar to quantum computers. We know how they work in theory, we know what they can do if we get them to work, and people have even wrote programs for them before actual quantum computers actually existed. The problem is that building one which is reliable and fast enough for practical uses has been extremely difficult. People know what kinds of impacts they'll have when they work, they are just too unreliable, expensive, and limited at the moment.

[@TheGigashadow]

It's interesting to see that misconceptions and revisionist history was strong and healthy even back then before social media... Henry Ford did not invent the car nor was he the first to mass produce them, yet that's what is implied in this episode!

[@rizalukman7982]

Thank you for the video, they got it right that in future TV is not archenamy for children and teacher

[@AckzaTV]

13:39 he says f 15 simulator, but the 3d model is a f-22 shown in 1992 wow, back then we all assumed it was just some "video game model" ahah woah came out 1997

[@Veksta]

I noticed the same thing!

[@Medicranger]

We take it all for granted now.

[@deanmountford]

This is a great transfer from video. What did you use for deinterlacing and was this from VHS? If so what deck? My Sony in chewing tapes.

[@lukebattersby9179]

Naughty Sony!

[@amit4Bihar]

Even handwriting recognition is not fully working till now

[@jwb52z9]

I wish this show had aired in the US. At least, if it did, I never knew it.

[@MonteD1]

It did. It was one of my favorite shows.

[@Miler97487]

Beyond 2000 aired on the Discovery Channel in the States. That channel also aired its predecessor Towards 2000 as well but they hadn't aired Towards 2000 after 1988. 1988 was when Beyond 2000 first aired on Discovery, three years after its Australian premiere.

[@rasta77-x7o]

Wow i'd get 100000000000 FPS in these games with my RTX 3080. They even had VR. nice.

[@novacula]

Beyond 2000: "Upwards of 3 Trillion dollars could be spent online yearly" . I just checked.. "The amount of money spent on online consumer goods purchases in 2023 reached US$3.15 trillion"

[@GuyNelson-vd1wu]

Oh yes now it's 2025 and we have robots just like Rosie from The Jetsons I just love the future

[@KogureDevilchan]

35:28 as a 3D artist, this blew my mind.

[@CaptainPanick]

The commercials during this episode showed Michael Jackson, Robin Williams and Princess Diana, all who died under weird circumstances.

[@TCFan30]

Who wants to watch TV and be interrupted by interactive voicemail messages on the same screen...fark that.

[@easybeat5193]

As I'm watching this on my phone...lol

[@SD78]

Virtual Reality had a false dawn in the early 90s with primitive VR games and the film Lawnmower Man. The technology simply wasn't there at the time.

[@Miler97487]

It's safe to say the Nintendo VirtualBoy in 1995 killed the VR craze of the 1990s.

[@kalem_tapi_kritis]

5:22 this scene predicted foldable display laptop 5:25 and Siri

[@yeqianshi4045]

We still vote with pencils 20 years on....

[@TCFan30]

Nobody says you have to. Always use a pen.

[@macneoh7418]

Joey Biden wouldn't have it any other way.

[@GuyNelson-vd1wu]

This is retro now

[@mxsteven]

when future see its past! byegone 2000

[@dalebotgaming]

12:38 $1 video games, Oh i wish

[@leonchan0050]

Has become antique, already

[@mega-hb4re]

When people were skinny

[@whiteshadow59]

i remember the game at 26:28 but what was it?

[@TrevorTrevalgen]

Glad to help Shadow. The game was Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego. A classic of the time and ever since.

[@Harkeilla]

@@TrevorTrevalgen damn. Beat me by almost a year.

[@AckzaTV]

17:40 hah the simpsons newton thing is all i thought about lol then they play vaporwave lol

[@GlennDavey]

23:22 and this is literally our life now in the YEARRR 2 0 2 1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! true story tho we live in the future

[@CrookedEyeSniper]

They were sort of right. I bet they all laughed their balls off when that one guy said: "Maybe we should stick the computer into a phone?"

[@anthonybeifuss4588]

Seen it. Had to be there. Hahaha.lol

[@DSan-dk7ur]

Pfff. Nothing will come of these "Computers".

[@fadhilzakimunawwar]

2021

[@TCFan30]

Sonnies Walkman

[@c4ptainsimian]

And... Now we're at the beginning of the AI revolution... Software now understands context 😯

[@benburrows9722]

A historical documentary about computers... now AI is promising the future. It sounds like deja vous.

[@jastermereel4946]

who knew siri's dad was named jake

[@stevenshiller1600]

These quantum computers will be quite usefit.

[@GuyNelson-vd1wu]

Yes and there's Tesla there's Tessa's all over Evie's or over the place

[@julesverne2509]

lol I had an intel 486

[@tediri1805]

2025 still waching

[@TimonSuricata]

i miss these old days, now we live in HELL, bring back the 90's

[@delrachdubal]

Absolutely... Something happened to the utopia of the 90's. Maybe September 11th 2001 was the beginning of the end, maybe 2012 was the end. After social media went mainstream, ego, vanity, pride, and definitely Stupidity took over. This episode is Heaven compared to the Hell we are in now. There's no turning back, only descending to worse levels of Hell. That's unfortunately the only thing that's going to change. This Era had Hope, a hope for the Future. This hope is now gone. God... It's really sad. So sad I'm crying now. I wish I could go back.

[@jonscot8393]

60, 70's and 80's was the sweet era . Probably helped by drugs. I missed those days too, I just weren't born yet

[@remc4473]

ChatGPT has entered the chat 😂😂🤣🤣🤣

[@rainbowwarrior2635]

This show was a really great achievement. It's even better now then when it was new. But in hindsight you see the kid run into the home and get behind the Nintendo and you see his eyes are just mesmorized. That was the end of childhood because before Nintendo kids had to go out and play with other kids, explore and form social connections, but after Nintendo you could just sit around by yourself with your brain thinking it was doing exciting hand-eye coordination activity. Suddenly kids just sat at home antisocial so that was the beginning of massive social problems. I like what the guy at the end was saying about how computers were evolving faster then the law, society or our evolution. I just heard the state in 2008 only 8% of men under 30 were virgins but as of 2018 it was 28% and rising. People never though about the impacts of online cruising and dating apps. The xerox guy was crazy, he thought computers would result in us being in a more natural setting. No, now I can't even stay home because my mind is constantly ringig from wifi signals. And you go out in public and most people can never unplug from technology and just sit down and be real on the bus. I miss Newspapers.

[@rainbowwarrior2635]

The apple Newton.. what a joke. Man had they any clue about the iphone. I love you see the hip 90's people going for their apple newton like they're really hip cool people, doing all kinds of business with their newton. WOW

[@Veksta]

So many CRT’s. Take me back!

[@RandallLeeReetz]

A user focused design ethos is important... but if you've ever held focus group sessions, you will know that users haven't a clue what they want or what might become of the future. This video seems as most like this to only present vague top down popular notions of what matters in computing. No actual understanding of or asking the questions required to develop a reasonable method of predicting the future of computation. Seems as though the producers are as ignorant as their audience. Sad. I call this shovel-ware, filling the channel with shit. They never seemed to ask anyone with anything like the sort of intelligence or insight of say Jef Raskin, Douglas Engelbart, or Alan Kay. There are people out there with more knowledge about the future of computing than XYZ executive of XYZ corporation.

[@jimbab101]

oh simon

[@lukebattersby9179]

😂

[@amit4Bihar]

Voice recognition is still worse than human voice recognition capability

[@AckzaTV]

this is real #vaporwave

[@balk0vic]

Car transport analogies are kind of cringy :)

[@chalkandcheese1868]

Using the word cringy for everything is kind of cringy.

[@balk0vic]

@@chalkandcheese1868 No, just for this video. For example, your mother is not cringy.

[@chalkandcheese1868]

@@balk0vic I have no idea what TF you just said.

[@balk0vic]

@@chalkandcheese1868 That's because I wrote it.

[@chalkandcheese1868]

@@balk0vic Both of us have no idea what TF you're talking about.

[@Harkeilla]

Nintendo 😂😂😂 Anyone who is anyone had a Sega Master System!

[@LoveMafae]

consumer porn box

[@codeeater0]

Best part is the ads that you left in 🥲