1981 News Report on the Internet is Now Hilarious

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There are so many amusing things in this 1981 television report about getting newspaper content from the Internet that it's hard to keep track. The smirk and smug tone of voice of the reporter, as if she's informing the public of a quaint yet ridiculous idea that stands no chance of ever being embraced by the public. The opening line: "Imagine if you will, sitting down to your morning coffee and turning on your home computer to read the day's newspaper." Mind boggling! The CRT screens, dial-up connections using a phone receiver and hours of download time for a text file.

I think the thing that I enjoyed most was the picture of the pioneering gent who was receiving the San Francisco Examiner online with his name and a caption underneath that read "owns home computer." Ahh, the 80s. -Via Lost at E Minor.


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All those papers are still alive.

By the way, it's Compuserve as it says in the ad in the video, not Internet. Compuserve had no connection with Internet until 1989.
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This is a really fascinating historical report. Here’s where the slow death of the newspaper industry started. The Columbus Dispatch, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Times and The Minneapolis Star and Tribune were in the vanguard for getting their “content” online and for free. “We’re not in it to make money. We’re probably not going to lose a lot, but we aren’t going to make much either.”

They didn’t realize the ramifications of what they were doing and once the gates opened. . .
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