The Computer Chronicles - Computers in Communications (1984)

This episode examines the use of computers in a variety of communications settings, from cell phones to landlines.
Special thanks to archive.org for hosting these episodes. Downloads of all these episodes and more can be found at: archive.org/details/computerch...

[@TheXGamer969]

Just a regular guest - inventor of Ethernet.

[@peterlondon9453]

😅

[@alles_klar]

This show is great for this kind of stuff, just half an hour ago I had "the CEO of Adobe, the developer of something called 'PostScript'"

[@jr2904]

What a grand time in computer science history! This show was also hosted by Gary Kildall, a brilliant guy as well

[@user-ke6zk5xg9m]

Stewart speaking to a cell phone, while driving at 50mph. And he's proud of it! :-)

[@arbayer2]

Driving at 50mph, on a cell phone, while speaking to the camera and engaging his on-screen persona. That's a lot to juggle all at the same time XD

[@harasen_haras5]

Driving and multitasking before it was uncool.

[@johnvanstelten9363]

Talking is one thing but texting???

[@nickwallette6201]

Eyes on the road, Stew! >< “Computers in Traffic Accidents, on the next episode of The Computer Chronicles.”

[@anthonydarpino6694]

And it looks like no seat belt.

[@calvinsaxon5822]

I'm glad "Random Access" had a segment within a segment to update everyone on what was going on in the world of Silicon Valley cocaine use.

[@GeoNeilUK]

Cocaine must have been really expensive back in those days and those boffins could easily afford it if you look at the prices they were charging. Those prices are eye-watering even before you factor in inflation!

[@CMDRScotty]

Thats a good handheld for 1984-5 This is what tech was like when I was born fascinating.

[@numericalcode]

"I'll buy some of Bob's company." Excellent tip, Schwab guy!

[@rooneye]

20:21 Woah! That keyboard! That sound!

[@captainkeyboard1007]

This show keeps me appreciating the microcomputer. I discovered that I can do more than keyboarding alone. I am able to communicate right at the base of my home by sending documents without the need to travel with the public or walk less than a mile to the post office.

[@wohlhabendermanager]

Wow! Stewart! Put your phone away while driving! And don't look into the camera for like 20 seconds without looking at the road.

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

AT&T stands for American Telephone and Telegraph. I’ve always wanted to try to use them to send a telegraph.

[@thomasg86]

0:15 ... Stewart, Stewart, Stewart. Wear a headset bud. And buckle your seatbelt. And keep your eyes on the road for goodness sake! He was lucky to survive this intro! ;)

[@sdowns77]

thomasg86 calm down. the cameraman had everything under control.

[@Sarahxxx666]

+thomasg86 "I'm driving along the freeway at 55 miles an hour while doing all those crazy things endangering the lives of several million of other people" Maybe I overdid it just a little ? ;-)

[@lxndrlbr]

I screamed (internally) when I saw that intro! The horror! It was like watching pregnant moms chain smoking in &quot;Mad Men&quot;! (edited for @Mitchell_wodach)

[@mitchellwodach2215]

@@lxndrlbr Mad Men chain smoking pregnant moms. lol use commas

[@DanDrolett]

Wonder if it was shot in a studio with a chroma key over a rolling background. If that's the case he wasn't even in a moving car.

[@danielrbsutton]

It is funny, some of the sarcastic jokes that they told actually came to fruition! The joke is on them, 39 years later!!

[@johnnylongfeather3086]

There’s no way these displays that show the incoming callers’ numbers will never catch on.

[@CMDRScotty]

Bob inventor of Ethernet thank you!!!

[@calif1mc]

Shouldn't this be 1985? The Air Date shows April of 1985.

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

8:40 And the center bottom of the screen in the live demo shows the interview segment was recorded on 3/9/1985.

[@nilslin]

Yes, same with other episodes unfortunantley...

[@GeoNeilUK]

1984, when the UK had PRESTEL and the French had Minitel. PRESTEL never really took off, because BT made the equipment and service expensive, Minitel was all over France because France Telecom literally gave the terminals away.

[@GeoNeilUK]

Also, the communications that linked the thousands of islands of computing, brought to you by a Brit working in Switzerland who gave it away for free!

[@marctronixx]

good to see a brotha on this set as a guest!

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

Philips CD-I and Web TV were two of the unfortunate failures in attempting to make televisions 2-way communications.

[@marctronixx]

i was a webtv early adopter. loved it at the time!!!

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

@@marctronixx I don't doubt it was cool. I wish I had experienced it.

[@QuaaludeCharlie]

Ahh , Communications in 1984 :) QC

[@gamesystemaddict3949]

It's seems most of these 84 episodes are actually from 85. I wonder how many others are out of order

[@gamesystemaddict3949]

@@evhvariac2 you're probably right

[@WiseGuy02]

Wow on the phone and talking to camera while driving. Almost a loss of licence here in Australia. And a huge fine.

[@oto2026]

Gary seems like a really nice person. So sad what happened to him.😢

[@randywatson8347]

Now that's a smartphone! Dang buying stocks via computer... hi-tech for 1984.

[@OmegaWolf747]

So, when Bill was dialing into the stock market service, was this over the Internet, or more like a direct dial into a BBS?

[@ericn9vjg]

New computer with 512K RAM for only $4,000. I'll think about it.

[@lucius1976]

and? Going to buy?

[@zg-it]

$4000 in 1984! Maybe $10k today??

[@RonJohn63]

12:56 Too bad it was stunningly expensive...

[@RonJohn63]

14:15 A battle which both lost.

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

He's driving while using his phone! He is so gonna get fined! :P

[@kellingc]

And vlogging - though it wasn't called that back then.

[@wallacelang1374]

Ironically this particular episode was done twenty years before the advent of the Apple iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy Android smartphones. 🤔

[@jep7080]

10:55 lol just a small blurb being the major way homes get internet

[@anadragos8340]

✨The question was, what do you see in cable tv being on computers? He said he didn't know, but its in the future. We are in the future, and its called, KZbin!😃⌨☕️💼✨

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

and Netflix and Hulu and Disney+ and hundreds of other streaming services popping up. Time will tell which ones will survive the streaming video wars of the 2020s.

[@zachfenton608]

Not looking at the road with that old cell phone

[@mayorhaggar1275]

22:29 is correct

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

"Remember that time we all had integrated telephones and computers? No? Well I guess that's because it flopped " XD BTW When I hear the word Higgins I think of Magnum PI! :P

[@ObiWanBillKenobi]

Electronic mail! Strong Bad is happy for that!

[@CMDRScotty]

Paul you develop the technology's cause if you don't someone eles will.

[@calvinsaxon5822]

Ameritrade and Sofi, eat your hearts out. This was 1984! Of course, the funny thing is that there was a factotum sitting at the other computer who would write down the order and call it in, but hey they were trying.

[@oldtwins]

@1:40 damn, that portable is ahead of its time. Will Apple sue for trying to copy their iphone ?

[@jessihawkins9116]

iPhone wasn’t created until 2008

[@dixie_rekd9601]

omg you can send an image to another computer??!! witchcraft.

[@levicassidy9312]

you only say that cause you were born in the point and click era of computers where back in the day it was all text based and you had to tell the computer what you wanted it to do by typing in a command so computers back then couldn't do half as much as computers of today

[@zachbarber3211]

I'd be willing to bet that you personally have absolutely no idea how any of this works, you were born into a generation that had all this space-age tech that was built over the course of decades just handed to you lol. Thank boomers that laid the groundwork for your smartphone.

[@dixie_rekd9601]

@@zachbarber3211 how much exactly would you be willing to bet that a software engineer doesn't know how any of it works?

[@dixie_rekd9601]

@@levicassidy9312 when exactly was I born?

[@zachbarber3211]

@@dixie_rekd9601 Depends on the type of software enginner, most modern software engineers don't need to know the specifics of how these things work on a hardware, protocol or transfer level, that would typically be a network engineer or computer engineer. Of course the only reason that they don't need to know these things anymore, is because people before them abstracted away all of the functionality throughout the years. When we're hooking peoples' brains up to neural chips you'll think it's pretty amazing too, and in 50 years kids will be laughing about how weak our software and hardware of today was.

[@user-dq2fi2vc5j]

I love USA 🇺🇸

[@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-]

They seem to think we would be using a world wide computer network to look up stock information instead of porn and cat videos. How wrong they were! :P

[@oldtwinsna8347]

And cryptocurrency as well, an entire concept not yet invented.

[@tylerdurdenstronghltv8565]

I watch porn and cat videos!

[@GeoNeilUK]

To think Paul Schindler actually had it right!

[@calvinsaxon5822]

"Unix is our magic." And yet, supposedly, a magician is never supposed to reveal his tricks (I'm writing this on Linux).

[@randywatson8347]

I'm still using the terminal in 2022 😉

[@rabidbigdog]

You mean Linux is the host of your browser ....

[@danielrbsutton]

I am writing this comment on macOS Ventura! Another flavor of UNIX :). Yes, we have UNIX to thank for all of these wonderful goodness all the way from the back-end of the Internet to the computers we have on our desks, on our laps, and in our pockets!

[@oldtwinsna8347]

@10:24 Elon Musk enters the room to address this one.