NYT on Laptops in 1985
February 19, 2015This article in the New York Times from 1985 with predictions about the use of laptops made me smile.
Yes, there are a lot of people who would like to be able to work on a computer at home. But would they really want to carry one back from the office with them? It would be much simpler to take home a few floppy disks tucked into an attache case.
Of course i’d love to take some floppy disks with me, neatly tucked into my attache case.
But the real future of the laptop computer will remain in the specialized niche markets. Because no matter how inexpensive the machines become, and no matter how sophisticated their software, I still can’t imagine the average user taking one along when going fishing.
Sentences like these demonstrate very well how hard it is and how utterly bad we humans are at predicting the future. And those rare people who have big visions often get laughed at in the beginning. Today we may think it’s crazy to think about colonizing mars. But i’m pretty sure in 20 to 30 years we will look back and laugh at some of todays articles and predictions about the future.