High Tech: computers and gadgets in 1994

February 1994
Original script: Remember manual typewriters? Heck, remember pens and pencils? They may be obsolete someday. We’ve gotten to the point where there is some computer or high-tech gadget that will do just about anything we need to do. It can be easy or hard. Fun or frustrating. Tonight, we begin a two-part look at the changes technology has caused in our lives. We call it High Tech 101.
Hal Clement and photojournalist Ben Cutshall delivered the lesson.

[@NamiberGames]

Love the aesthetic of old computers

[@KhairulAnwar-mp8lo]

Saem

[@m-stat9]

me not 💩

[@Hudgiefish11]

Same

[@kentrader2489]

Fr

[@SinisterServal]

1994: CDs are replacing records 2024: Records still exist

[@fivehundrediq5212]

Records are a very small niche market

[@KylesVideos]

@@fivehundrediq5212less niche than CDs these days!

[@S500-]

Its ironic that LP Records are still available but not CDs and same goes to Cassettes V/A.

[@hackerx7329]

@@fivehundrediq5212 Vinyl outsold CDs the last 2 years.

[@blank12358]

@@fivehundrediq5212 Records are going mainstream. Gen Z say they've had enough of the digital world and they're going analogue!

[@TechySpeaking]

30 years later, and VR still hasn't caught on.

[@StatusQuo209]

What do you mean, there are millions of Quests out there.

[@Puretea4711]

@@StatusQuo209 maybe, but there is only trash software and some mid games for it.....

[@StatusQuo209]

@@Puretea4711 half life Alyx, beat saber, boneworks, project cars 2, Assetto Corsa, Bounce, etc. There are a lot more. I agree though that MOST games are trash. There are a ton of gems tho

[@FlockofSmeagles]

For you, it's definitely the future. Spatial computing is 2 steps away from your grumpy ass yelling at it because you don't get it.

[@QWADZA]

those are pc games not quest. pc is too expensive for the average person

[@cgimovieman]

I grew up throughout the 80’s and 90’s, and I miss these times. It was all so exciting practically on a daily basis. Today, nothing “wows” us anymore. You can’t really get much higher resolution than 8K or 16K TV, and even if you could, the human eye could barely distinguish it from 4K. Cell phones you can go so much with that we don’t even use it all now, and you can communicate with anyone around the world at no extra charge. Things like music and movies are available instantly, from at home to in our pockets on smartphones, and in HD with uncompressed audio. You can order products from companies like Amazon laying in bed off an app on your phone, even speaking in the order if you want, and it could be at your door in 2-3 hours. What else is there? It’s become kind of depressing to me, as a person who grew up constantly being “wowed”. Today nothing seems exciting to me anymore.

[@nuassul]

There is still much to discover, such as new drugs, cures for diseases that at the moment are impossible to cure, sending probes into space much faster than the current ones, exploring 100% of the oceans (we have only explored 5%), creating efficient and commercial nuclear fusion reactors, clean up pollution in the world. There are many things to discover and invent but all in good time, this is what excites me about the future.

[@dirkfierce2525]

The Apple Vision Pro has wowed me in a way that no tech product ever has. Despite it’s many faults, it still feels like a device that is from 10 years in the future.

[@OrangeSodaBunny]

This is exactly spot on. I had my Palms, and I would download to it the latest from Engadget and all the tech news sites I could, and read it wherever I wanted. Before that AOL and Compuserve opened up the whole world! It was so exciting! There were many years of thrills. Now it doesn’t even matter what phone or computer you have. They are relatively all the same as far as what you can do. I know there will still be big things and of course it moves forward, but there will probably be nothing exactly like that era of amazement and anticipation again! We were the ones who got to transition from being confined to what was going on locally, to holding the world in the palms of our hands!

[@OperationChicago]

Video games got better but music went to crap :(

[@catiapb1]

Robotics is the answer, robotics will bring the new exciting tech regarding home assistance and improvement of life quality. Too bad it seams so far way for anything useful for the average individual.

[@Skandinavisk]

Here's the thing, it felt amazing back then.

[@dudemetoo2053]

Agreed. It was quite magical. The home PC evolution along with getting connected to the internet by the masses of society felt very optimistic - almost as if society was on the verge of something pretty amazing.

[@ShimiNicholasKomane-tg3bt]

Right,I was thinking the same thing, we thought sophistication level in which technology became then was enough,boy were we wrong😊,fascinating stuff😊.

[@S7EVE_P]

Its still amazing. Cameras optics on smartphones are incredible. I can turn lights on in my house, open my electric gate, from anywhere in the world!!

[@gamereactz]

​@@S7EVE_P right just because they are ancient and nostalgic..

[@S7EVE_P]

@@gamereactz Happens to everyone. One day, maybe, we will all be ancient and nostalgic.

[@RoganKayle]

We went from: "Computer, open calculator." To: "Computer, open calculator. Shut up, Alexa! I'm wasn't talking to you!"

[@jamesjiao]

Alexa: "I am sorry. I don't understand what you mean by: I wasn't talking to you."

[@tonycollazorappo]

I thought I was the only one who yells at Alexa and google, LOL. They are nosey!! LOL.

[@johneygd]

Haha🤣

[@CallieKuczek-r4y]

😂🤣

[@CallieKuczek-r4y]

@@jamesjiao😂🤣

[@TechySpeaking]

RIP to the man who adopted the Apple Newton.

[@purefoldnz3070]

Eat up Martha!

[@WiseGuy02]

Thanks. 😊 I did buy it second hand though.

[@DaniSmith_95]

the foundation for our future was set in the 90's

[@robroy6374]

80s

[@marodonthemorone]

70s

[@robroy6374]

60s@@marodonthemorone

[@fakereality96]

50s

[@robroy6374]

@@fakereality96 haha

[@maxwillson]

I still have our 1995 Macintosh Performa. The 90s was a fun era in computing. I miss the days when computer games had the really cheesy green screen acting in cutscenes ahahaha!

[@jetscreamer1]

1994 was not that long ago, for people like me. It feels like yesterday cause I experienced all these tech.

[@HolahkuTaigiTWFormosanDiplomat]

０．０

[@9852323]

I want to go back to the 90s technology.

[@CallieKuczek-r4y]

I feel the same way, at times.

[@Catinbox123-ne4le]

and now we can come together, here, and TALK about it 20 years on. A world we could NOT have seen coming.

[@RandomRoulett3]

you mean 30

[@Catinbox123-ne4le]

@@RandomRoulett3 ah yes, thank you, lol. I was taking computer prog. in I think eighth grade and even then it was tough haha. Good year, 94......ah the nostalgia and memories. Thanks again and love the avatar, emojis apply but have to run :) CITB to your beaver? woodchuck lol. :) Peace, haha right, 30. ugh.

[@Stefan-]

As old as these items seem today 30 years after they are still very modern compared to how things were when i grew up in the 70´s.

[@Trance88]

Exactly. 1964 was a completely different world from 1994. 1994 is very different from 2024, but a lot of the tech we use today was either already being used in its early stages by early adopters or was in development. A lot of the elements for modern portable networked computing with PDA's and palmtops would give way to the modern smartphones we use today. I feel like over the last 30 years, we've done more "refining" in our technology than any actual marvel breakthroughs.

[@Stefan-]

@@Trance88 Yes i definately agree on the refining part, that goes for many things not just electronics but cars, trains or anything really and it was in time also brought out to the masses since as you say parts of it at least existed in some form but maybe in development and early adopters and most hardly had heard about it. Speaking of smartphones, i worked in repairing mobile phones in the 90´s and one of the early smartphones were the Nokia 9000 communicator from 1996 which i saw at the repairshop since we were an authorized repairshop for Nokia.

[@GerbenWijnja]

I remember this stuff like it was yesterday. Good times. If I could go back, I wouldn't hesitate.

[@dudemetoo2053]

So much has changed. Yet so much is still the same. "Hey Siri, what time is it?" "HEY SIRI!" "DAMN YOU SIRI, YOU PIECE OF CRAP!"

[@Fuzy2K]

"I can show you more results on your iPhone" Fuck off, Siri! I only asked what *date* it is!

[@kamildouglas]

damn i miss the 90's

[@futureb1ues979]

They were very optimistic about the future at that time, for them we should already be using flying cars...

[@GugureSux]

You are correct. Best regard: one of those people.

[@-Swamp_Donkey-]

The underestimated how maladapted non-White are, and how committed Jews are to diversifying any White majority country.

[@cylotron5447]

I used to go to the Computer shows they had at the Del Mar Fair every year. It was great for picking up parts and picking up tons of demo floppies to try out. That and I was a regular at both Egghead Software and PC Club. I also made sure to pickup Computer Edge magazines whenever a new one was released.

[@eliastahan2394]

Loving this vintage/throwback 90s content. Subscribed.

[@eldiablo3794]

This video is a good example of Moore's law. The number of transistors on a microchip doubles about every two years with a minimal cost increase.. computer technology will get better, smaller, and cheaper.

[@videox222ify]

what about the flying cars ?

[@Neotron2001]

1996-2003 Those were the magic years.

[@ZombieXHunter115]

Technology has come a long way. Now we scroll through social media while sitting on the toilet. 😎

[@user-oe1mk8wr7d]

People shit on both toilet and twitter simultaneously nowadays

[@FromDesertTown]

Now we can brainwash millions of people and get them to vote for us because we tweet lies from our golden toilet!

[@MarkWhich]

That's gross who would do that?

[@markb1010]

Probably the best place for anti-social media

[@BPJJohn]

*"Shitting on the toilet."*

[@chukidee6634]

This is fantastic. A moment in that time. Thanks for the upload! 🎉

[@Aranimda]

Mobile phones in the 1980s: Ginormous. Mobile phones in the 1990s: Large. Mobile phones in the 2000s: Nice and small. Mobile phones in the 2010s: Large. Mobile phones in the 2020s: Ginormous.

[@OrangeSodaBunny]

Everyone mocked me when I had my 6” Lumia in 2014. “I could never carry around a phone that big!” they said. Fast forward to 2020s, everyone has to have the MAXes, the bigger the better lol. And at the moment I have a 12 Mini! 😂

[@Guilherme36594]

I was a kid at the time, i only experienced computers back in 1998, but yes i miss SO MUCH the 90s.

[@Catinbox123-ne4le]

the LATEST cutting-edge tech right here for 2024.

[@CBM64]

In 1994 the world already had Doom II. The peak of civilization was reached.

[@lmoore3rd]

1:38 An eerie simulated preview of the horror of watching landscape video in portrait mode, still decades to come.

[@KhairulAnwar-mp8lo]

I miss the 90s.

[@japlavaren]

by watching this video I am not sure if we moved anywhere in last 30 years. yes, everything is faster with nicer graphic, but voice controlled computer was thing, VR was thing. we just have crazy resources to run ton of resources for virtualisation for job that can handle calculator in the past

[@museonfilm8919]

The internet just has better ways of distracting us these days!!

[@ralanham76]

I changed my ringer to the 56k dialup sound 😁 It's really throws people off.

[@Stev417]

Where can I watch more stuff like this?

[@DieselDucy]

It is amazing how technology has changed and what is making a comeback! Records are making a BIG comeback!

[@Angultra]

The quality of the recording is fantastic, great blast from the past.

[@user-cl1bz7br5k]

Ese era el equilibrio perfecto tecnología para estudiar y trabajar Sin redes sociales

[@Nickecho7979]

Wow!! I can't wait!!

[@zappyyz6368]

id love to go back in time with a laptop made today with like a 4090 or smth in it would be so funny to see peoples reactions

[@awwwtomotive]

3:42 he’s RIGHT! You buy iPhone today, a few months later your iPhone is obsolete or outdated.

[@FlockofSmeagles]

News pages are going to be saying this about spatial computing in about 15 years. Here it comes. Ready or not!

[@jeromedavis8575]

It's here!

[@Assadul-Naml]

Star Wars 2:20 Had the wrong music. This is a snippet from ESB, but the music is from ROTJ.

[@karlsmith7016]

I don't believe some of this technology will ever be released at least not for a long time

[@oldradiosnphonographs]

“It will be available sometime in the fall of 1995” then its never released

[@elmaikitofficial]

Wow ☺️ nice flashback

[@37Kilo2]

The Apple Newton. The only person to ever own one, was Nelson Muntz, who promptly threw it at Millhouse's head.

[@mrparkerdan]

Casey Ryback also had one.

[@racheljohnson2219]

Now we got Netflix, Smart TV's, iPhones Spotify, AI... Dang! What's next?

[@liamjames-hendriks4895]

what's next is AI and it's already unfolding! It's just in the dial-up phase.

[@apark8787]

Aside from smartphones, technology now just seems faster and sleeker, but doesn't seem like much revolutionary changes?

[@dudemetoo2053]

It was a bit different at the time.. PC's and being connected to the World Wide Web was something New, amazing, and even revolutionary to most everyone for the time when News papers, Snail Mail, and LAN Phone lines were about as advance as most common folks were use too.That said, I blame smart-phones for killing the PC revolution and outside of gaming PCs, Home PC's and that excitement of wheat a PC can bring to your home - pretty much died.

[@adreto2978]

CPUs are faster and faster each year which matters to people who need performance. GPUs also have experienced crazy growth in last 5 years and power AI and data centre like stuff. Most of the advancements nowadays are in data centre

[@Magnus_Loov]

Everything that got inside the smartphone was a revolution in itself. They didn't have mp3-players, digital cameras, digital video recorders, flat screen touch displays that can show 4k, the GPS navigation etc. Nothing of this existed in 1994 as a mass consumer product. Besides that we also have all interactive Web pages where you can do stuff and just ism't a static page. Things like ordering online, google maps, wikipedia. Online Streaming of videos, podcasts, The social medias etc. Insane 3D-accelerated games with virtual worlds that looks close to real. Also Self driving cars, 7:2 ATMOS surround audio systems, extremely big flat screen TV:s that displays 4k (or even 8k). The list goes on and on. And I have left out AI which is happening right now and is going to be an even bigger thing!

[@erikhicks07]

0:16 is still today's VR experience. The look on that guy's face says everything.

[@Whoswhoofwho]

it took me18days and 6hrs to download green days dookie

[@mattkennedy6115]

Worth it

[@goatpepperherbaltea7895]

High level and impressive art direction 1:38

[@BilalHeuser1]

This is like a look back in time!! Some prediction have come true and others seem rather quaint now ...

[@thestudentat101]

✨️Amazing✨️

[@CamiloSanchez1979]

We are as far from this era as this era was as far from the invention of BASIC.

[@fakereality96]

It was all a dream...or was it?

[@nonamegonzalez5711]

You guys would not want to have to go back to this trust me

[@eduardolobos7380]

Why

[@konservburq]

Not the technology maybe but the people and the world was a more exciting place than the times we are living in now.. everything is so boring. the whole world nothing is unique any more.

[@user-cl1bz7br5k]

Yo sí era el equilibrio entre la vida comunitaria y la tecnología

[@johneygd]

1994 was the future, anno 2024 everything seems to go backwards whether in sociaty,economy or gui on computers etc,,, We are living in an annoying age🥲

[@JS-qw4ln]

the whooooshing noise 😂

[@RandomNonsense1985]

And all of that stuff is now done on a cell phone.

[@deevancheg]

Прошло тридцать (!) лет, а виртуальная реальность всё ещё не стала такой, какой мы её представляли.

[@DominicGo]

vinyls making a comeback, we love to see it

[@hhgygy]

Cinemania '97 CD, OMG, I completely forgot about it. It even had updates via the Internet. I had to check my memory on Wikipedia. I've even found the original CD, it kind of works on Windows 11 but it is 640x480 LoL

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

"Planned Obsolesence:" "Six months from now, your computer will be obsolete."

[@YoshiGotXP]

he meant that your brand new top of the line computer won't be so top of the line in 6 months because the technology is improving very fast.

[@kentrader2489]

It’s 2024 and we’re still trying to perfect virtual reality

[@adape0884frank]

Wow just amazing how technology has evolved and the internet I remember was expensive as hell to have.

[@Hudgiefish11]

I love the old CRT TVs

[@jokomendoza_official]

Is that all real? Looks so cool!

[@benjohnson3022]

The days before people were addicted to social media....

[@JUSTENization]

Bring us all back. I bought my wife a Sony PDF for $1;100 from Fashion Valley.

[@viz8746]

I like this part of KZbin - the nostalgia wing.

[@brdane]

It's interesting to see technology like phones began to replace calendars, planners, notebooks... but nowadays it seems people have hone back to those.

[@proyectosit-sapmora8284]

1994, Computer: What time is it? / 2024, GPT 4.0: Please build all my weekly agenda based on my recurrent events of the last week and associate it to weather variants for the next week

[@discopants68]

I was way more materialistic back then than I am today. But I began to experience those feelings of tech-lust again watching this, even though it’s so primitive by today’s standards.

[@howardcohen4845]

Cool 😎

[@jackilynpyzocha662]

When I get overwhelmed by technology, I return to books(physical)! Libraries are necessary!

[@jarveyjaguar4395]

3:10 Forget their size, did you ever think how smart they would get ? 😉😉😉😉

[@cameronweston1762]

What’s a CD? I have all my music on vinyl . It’s the new IN thing now.

[@seanjacobs4723]

1994 is as far away today as 1964 was in 1994.

[@chukidee6634]

6:46 - the ancestor of Siri 😂

[@Seattlefan77]

I like the Bompton's interactive encyclopedia

[@sinfulonekain]

Well for VR all you needed back then was a SG 300,000 dollar workstation, seems legit!

[@DrummingMan1]

Hey Siri, open Calculator! I'm sorry Dave, it's 2024 , your iPad doesn't have a calculator!

[@stevecinneide8183]

"records...hmmm." 1:55 oh how little he knew.

[@MajesticJoshua]

I was born in February 1994. People must have thought that they were living in some sci-fi future.

[@JohnFekoloid]

Welcome to the world. Sorry I missed your birth as I'm totally unrelated to you. Hope you've been having a nice time since?. I live in Nigeria. Been here since the 70s. Yes, we glimpsed at some of these gadgets through movies and thought they were great.

[@MajesticJoshua]

@@JohnFekoloid Don't worry about missing my birth; the majority of the world missed it too. I'll let you off the hook this time. 😜 The world has been pretty good to me so far, and I hope it's been great to you too. I wonder what kind of gadgets we'll get in the future that currently only exist in movies.

[@DavidTheHypnotist]

Everything in this video is now in your phone

[@IkarusKommt]

LOL. I remember how the publishers boasted that their records were mastered digitally, giving an "unprecedented quality of sound".

[@yamil.343]

“You’ve got mail”….😊

[@Harpers.]

Where was the Walk Man by ＳＯＮＹ.

[@CosmizEve]

the first walkman was 12 years old by the time this was made

[@Nebarus]

Handheld digital devices? That will never catch on...

[@FelixDaHack]

Only a certain amount of us will know what each of those sounds are.. Haha remember if you had to use the internet then you'd have to tell your flatmate that the phone was taken for a few hours.? 😅 Then sometimes it would take hours to just get a connection... Or a download or two. Happy times, simple times.

[@stevecinneide8183]

"six months from now" typically sales pitch crap. Even today that's not true.

[@Sarnarath]

1:09 The backside looks like it's 2030's tech.

[@weirdshibainu]

AOL did really open up the internet to the world

[@AzeezFarooqi96]

Maybe I’m just a bit simple minded, but I miss how straightforward and uncomplicated technology used to be. We had enough technology to assist us in our daily lives without it overtaking our lives.

[@VideoGamer945]

1:13 Eat up Martha

[@Monsuco]

It's weird how records ended up outlasting CDs for the most part.

[@fivehundrediq5212]

That’s because a small group of retards want to go back to 1978

[@gevelegian]

What will they think of next?

[@AgentSmith911]

All in all, things haven't changed that much

[@rtperrett]

Records are back, or they never left.

[@Nightweaver1]

I was 14 when this report was made, and this plus all the video game mags I read made it seem like the future that everyone predicted for me was coming true. Then I grew up and realized after the weight of the world crushed my spirit that it was all a dystopian nightmare and that we have become shacked to technology, rather than it setting us free. I wanted so hard for computing tech to realize this egalitarian future where there was no poverty or greed or isolation, but there's more of that than there's ever been, 30 years hence.

[@kirk1968]

6:04 I wonder if Gilligans is OK, looks like they needed help with a guy who won't leave 🤔

[@deckofcards87]

"E mail" thats just swell. But I dont think it will ever happen.