Terminal Madness (A 1980 Documentary About Personal Computers)
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- Опубликовано: 27 сен 2024
- There is a better quality version of this video here: • Terminal Madness (A 19...
Terminal Madness was produced by Jerilyn Goodman for WMTV in Madison, WI in 1980. It contains interviews with several Madison residents who were exploring various uses for personal computer technology. About halfway through the video there is a segment filmed at my home showing how I had programmed a Cromemco Z-2 computer to control lights and appliances. Back then, I don't think any of us imagined how far personal computer technology would advance, and become so essential to our daily life.
I'm watching this on my home computer terminal
LOL
3 years late, but you have "Terminal madness". 😃
Yup that's exactly what i say ^^
I'm watching this on my phone - how crazy would that sound in 1980?
or - i'm watching this on my phone on the train. people would say "you must have a long phone cord"
I can't wait until we get a computer in every home, it sounds very futuristic :)
One in every fridge!
At the time, some people thought the "personal computer" (as it was called) was a passing fad like the hula hoop and would be forgotten by now. For someone back then to talk about a computer in every home would have marked you (in some people's minds) as deserving to be locked in a padded room.
Documentaries like this are like time capsules. Thanks for the upload!
yeah these retro documentaries are awesome - they're like gold! this one in particular is great at demonstrating how popular and wide-spread computers had become even in 1980, and what their capabilities were at that time.
@@skylerlandale1437 Agreed
I agree. Hope people are backing all these up so they can be re uploaded because you never know when youtube decides to take them down.
That's nothing, where I live it is still 1979... a living time capsule. This 1980 documentary seems rather futuristic to me...
Indeed and its almost 2020 and looking back at this is really fascinating!.
"as normal as a color TV is now" in 1980
Ha! I still remember how excited I was as a 6-7 year old in 1982/1983 when our family finally got a color TV, I thought color TVs were for more rich folks, even into the early 80s. We were middle class, but my parents were very frugal, so my early childhood felt like what someone living in the 1960s or early 70s felt, with black and white TVs and hoping to have a color TV. I remember it was heavenly to finally watch Bugs Bunny cartoons and Knight Rider in color. Black and White TVs were still sold even into the late 80s, though by the late 80s I think just about everyone had a color TV.
People had color tvs in the 70s
@@ZachRULES96 Yes I know color TVs were around in the 70s, even the 60s. As I said my parents were very frugal middle class folks, we weren't poor, but we weren't rich, and my parents didn't think a color TV was necessary until my sister and I bugged them for one. So my early childhood until I was about 7 years old in 1983 or so when my family finally got a color TV, felt like what I imagine someone growing up in 1963 felt like, watching a little Black and White TV. I remember it was a big deal for me to have that color TV in the 80s. I even met someone who told me how excited they were to get a color TV in 1992, now that floored me. I get the early 80s, but not the early 90s. Everyone I knew growing up had a color TV by 1985.
Thank you for posting this! My grandfather, Alan Kahn is in this showing how he used his computer for expenses, taxes, and even how used it for flight records for the FAA. Funny how different times were! My grandmother, Barbara Pratt and her daughters are in it as well! This was very touching to watch. Thank you 🙂
Wow! I'm so glad you found the video. The newborn baby in the video is my daughter. She just turned forty!
The internal combustion engine analogy was perfect.
I thought I heard about every computer analogy in existence, but this one is absolutely brilliant! It takes imagination to truly see the possibilities before they exist
Back in those times there was a kind of huge enthusiasm about this new technology: terminals, computers and networks... now it's all so common to most people they don't even explore it anymore...
I just love how the people in this video knew what kind of impact computers would have in the future. It's amazing to see how far computers have come. But it's unfortunate that people now don't appreciate and learn how these little machines work.
Completely agree. I love learning about computers! I think it's like the comparison he made in the video about the internal combustion engine. The majority of people have no idea how they work, they just buy a car or a lawnmower, they don't have to think about the details because they are so completely abstracted from them!
It's not as simple though. I recall in the 90s, I was learning C/C++ and DOS was really easy to program with. You can easily access the display memory since it was set at a particular address and all you had to do was just write the program out. Just writing an app that drew random lines was pretty impressive. However, you couldn't write complex apps. Very rarely you had true 3d graphics except with vector graphics or something like quake. All the others were using fake 3d to draw the world.
Man, computers didn't really catch on where I lived until about 1987.
Just think: some day we'll look just as ancient and primitive as these people do to us.
Well, non technical people are on exacly same primitivism level today as hey were in this video. Learning to play with new gatget is like smartphone doesn't make you more insightful about anything. What separates todays regular people from true primitivism is only the fact that they learned to read, write and basic arithmetics. Buying able to byu a gadget doesn't mean really mean anything. If you think that technoglogy and tools you use cultivate your culture and ethincs, then just realize that most people today doen't understand basic concepts like pressumption of innocence (opently admiting that concept like this is irrelevant to a person is equivalent to be savage or facist). The progress we have gained is the great knowlede which must be understood to be used. But regular people don't learn it. They are lower and lower below the level of understanding what makes the civilization run. So you don't have to look at these videos. Yust look at the people around you how they are using the technology, unconscious of their consumeristic addiction to the most useless aspects of it.
People are not less primitive now. We just have better technology to do everything that we did ourselves without the use of smart phones and computers back then. Making us, today, more ignorant and primitive
I still don't own a computer in 2021
@@GeorgWilde sadly, your quite serious about what you said… you have less perception or understanding of computer sciences than the people in the video had, there weren’t any apps yet, we had to write everything creating programs and applications. I know young adults didn’t look upon elders as primitives that’s a recent phenomenon.
@@pedroramires4459 you probably do, it's just in your microwave.
I showed this video to Alexa. She cried. She had never seen her family album before.
Alexa application or a person?
I love that this exists. Really takes me back to being a kid in the '80s.
Me too (i'm from 1977) first computer lesson on 1989 , commodore 64 with laser print and sound card ^^ we was : WOW what a beautiful colors what a realistic games !
Wish I was born in 80's or thereabouts to live life before we all relied on technology (although technology was relied upon in that time, but not as much as it is now in this current day and age). I was born in the early 90's and spent most of my days in the new millennium. Must've been great when no Internet existed. Because let's be honest, the Internet albeit is a profitable place, is a very toxic and idiotic cesspool filled to brim with offensive memes.
Yeah me to 👍
This all just a fad, we will be back to pencil and paper by 1985.
I agree
It's interesting to me how we've had primitive home automation since the 80s (and probably sooner) but it's only now starting to become commonplace.
My Dad was software developer, computing scientist back in the time. I am a software developer engineer... I hope my kids, when I have them, first and foremost find their own ways but It'd be amazing if they followed this beautiful path
Imaging going back in time with your smartphone
*Computers were ridiculously expensive back then. I can remember when I was 5 or 6 years old between 1989-1990 I used an Apple II computer, it was the first computer I had ever used and I remember my teacher had to do a lot of work to make the software work. Then in 1998 I was starting high school and my parents finally bought a desktop computer for home use, it was a Gateway computer. I love my modern computers including my iPad and my HP laptop but I do miss a time before excessive social media.*
I had my first Computer in 1981. The Sinclair ZX81. I even taught myself how to write programs for it and I was in my thirties.
nice one, you're never too old.
Good job man. I never made it past basic on a trs80. We had an Apple II that ran basic as well if I'm not mistaken.
This man at 11:47 had an extraordinary mastery of domotics 30 years before it was even a word. People that went to his home must have had a shock !
lol that’s the guy that uploaded this video :)
Wendy Carlo's Switched On Bach is the perfect music choice for such a documentary.
11:32 this guy did all of that in the 80's , imagine what he would have been able to do now?
"ok google" ..... "O-KAY GOOGLE! Turn on the damn lights!"
Scary how much they got right in this film. I’m always interested to see people’s perspective in the early days of certain technologies.
Thanks to visionaries like these I already owned a commodore Pet and an Apple II in 1978. I am now finishing my career as a software engineer
I love the sound effects in this video... PEW PEW PEW SPRRROING SPRRROING SPRRROING :-) Very late seventies- early eighties.
I wish we could go back to these earlier times, back when computers were like this.
Lol?
My husband bought my first pc in 1999 as a gift thinking I would enjoy doing something new and interesting recovering from an illness. It was the beginning of a love affair that continues to this day :) Thank you for uploading this video. Fun to watch.
I bought my first PC in 1999 - I was looking to compose music with it, but the total storage for 10gb. The sales person assured me "you could never fill 10gb...". Times have changed!
Meet somebody on-line? Kidding! 😁
What would be really interesting is a documentary made in 2019 on what impact computers are expected to have in 39 years time - I bet you it wouldnt even be close to what the reality will be
Pinoy Fried
And using those extremely powerful computers in their pockets, not to understand how, why and who are increasingly trying to control us ..... but to upload pictures of themselves, pictures of their latest meals and watch pussy cat videos - the dumbing down of society just keeps on going!
I never thought would hear someone on ironically say “what’s the advantage to using a computer instead of a typewriter?” Things were so different back then.
I remember at school messing around with a Commodore PET and I was hooked. This was in 1979. They had a bunch of Commodore PET computers available for students and they had to actually try and get me to get out of school so I can go home since I wanted to stay afterschool messing with the computers. :) Amazing how far things have gone.
In early 1984 I was a senior in high school and the Apple IIe was introduced & I got into the class. A friend & I developed a program that could run the accounting of virtually any business, down to retirement & health insurance & matching taxes. Sadly, we didn't know the gold we had in our hands & didn't do anything with it. I loved computers & programming but did other jobs for 12 years before jumping back in. If only I had stuck with it & rode the wave of development 😭. But, I have loved my hardware & software work for 28 years now & so many things I haven't taken advantage of but it still has been a great ride.
The old days, when the Internet was mostly text, no WWW. I miss the local BBS's, those were a lot of fun.
+Helium Road you can still run and use BBS... you can dial them via telnet instead of dial-up.. which in case of long-distance would reduce your phone bill.
And Telix chatrooms where everybody else was as nerdy as the rest of us and the jerks of society couldn't get in because you needed a brain to use it. 20 years later the neighbourhood has gone to hell because all the riff-raff have moved in!
We can still use them and it would be a lot cheaper today compared to then because of flat phone fees and they would be more secured.
when people who used computers were those that understood computers, not like today where most sheep would be better off without them
I enjoyed learning about those during a computing course I took last year.
I’m 22. I needed this in my life. Thank you.
I used to get a buzz when I would go to computer stores, and get hooked, the possibilities, the noise, the hardware, software, wow! I feel the same way about the current technology!
Hits really close to home. I was 10 years old when I was introduced to the Commodore PET in school. I had the VIC-20, the C64 and the 128 at home (and even took the 128 off to college!) before moving on to the PC platform. So many memories packed into this short video. Great stuff in here, thanks!
And despite it's low memory the C64 offered more opportunities then today's consumer only garbage. The C64 made the programming of the 90s possible as many who made your favorite titles one time or another had a scene in the Commodore groups. The Commodore 64 you could program directly to the kernel without paying big $$$ for the secrets.
The fact nobody did anything on their computer they couldn't have done on the back of an envelope and put up with those crappy graphics shows what incredible hope these people had in the future of computing. And they were right!
It wasn't hope. It was a certainty. The trajectory was obvious for anyone knowledgeable about computers at the time.
Our man's in the video just had a giant sticky note, didn't you see his teletype going crazy haha they saw the scalability of their programs and that's what I think they were excited about.
I love the middle parts in this with music getting played.
The term "It does not compute." rings a bell! Lost In Space Robot B9 from the tv series!
wow way ahead of your time Mr. Martin, that's amazing, thanks for sharing,
I loved this. I will never forget the wonder of using the computer room at school with the Atari 800, the TRS-80 Model 1 and the Commodore 64. I've been obsessed with computers ever since.
In 1980 when this was made, I was in high school 11th grade taking one of the first computer classes on one of these machines. Let me just say this, It was horrible. We've come along way.
I was in college. I input a bunch of code in basic for a project. It was 90 pct done, but it would not save to an 8 inch floppy. So I just printed it all out and handed it in. I got a passing grade in that course. Basically I developed a calculator for charging different fares for different distances traveled on the NYC subway.
were there games like Skyrim in 1980?😢
@@michaelm9920 No.. But Dungeons & Dragons was the first real RPG published in 1974.
There are some accurate predictions in this video but what they didn't see was that, at some point computers would be designed to be intuitive and that people would not really need to know how to program or be tech savvy in order to benefit. So the idea stated at the end, that the sooner people jumped on the personal computer bandwagon the better was not true for most people. For them, waiting until PC's started to become standardized and plug and play, and for operating systems that were GUI based to be developed, actually made more sense.
0:39 gotta love that cheap 80's synth music
I wonder how easy it would be to find such a collection of bright, enthusiastic and innovative people in small town America these days?
We’ve basically gone from the Middle Ages to now in less than 150 year
world war 2 wasnt that long ago. only about 80-85 years time. which was the war the first computers were built.
It's been in the hands of the military and the elite of shit since the 50's.
They suppress
EVERYTHING.
Sometimes the RUclips algorithm just gets it right. Thank you SO MUCH for this upload.
1980... The Coin Op Video Game Industry was exploding... The Home computer market was just opening up.. Think about a mere 5 years later... You had the VIC 20, the C64, The Amiga, The Atari 400/800 the ST, The Mac.. The apple 2 series.. the Tandys, the Texas Instruments computer, Great Britain had several computers, (I might have the time line wrong). like the Speccy, Amstrad etc. But seriously.. 5 years after this Documentary was made... we had the Next Generation of 16 bit computers, (The Amiga, Atari ST, the Mac and the IBM PC).... it was like a 1,000 years of advancement in 5 years! From crude Word Processing.. to Video Editing,,,(OK the video Toaster on the Amiga came out in the late 80's)... but certainly Desk Top Publishing... Graphical Editing programs... Music Programs.... This Weird Arpanet thing.. with those Useless MODEMS.. (That stood for Modulator/ Demodulator).. Why would Computers ever need to log onto other computers to download info.. how strange..and who could ever forget that FAD about taking pictures with a Computer.. and Editing them... (ala Digiview).... How useless was that?? Thank God that whole "Computer Fad thing" Went away... as predicted... (also that stupid "Video Game Thing".. My God when I was a Teen They certainly predicted that lame hobby as going away!).
Seriously,, Great video! I love Retro Computing! .. I did not get into it till like 83... but the Coin Op Gaming.. I was a junky since 72.. by 1980 it was unbelievable!.. Computing.. by the mid 80's it was God Like!
Sluggo
boy you aint kidding!
George Martin Thanks for posting this video, makes me feel old knowing I was alive during the 80's, but is nice to see how different things were.
I admire these people very much
I'm maybe a bit younger than a lot of people here. The young people I talk to online say I'm old because I got my first PC in 1997 and was using Windows 95, but seeing guys here who got one in the early 1980s is pretty eye opening. I came in right as the internet was getting popular, and now of course we all have supercomputers in our pockets, which would be total wonders to people from this era.
I worked in a vacuum-sealed computer room like that, chasing down COBOL reports and running nightly jobs. IBM mainframe, what a huge, clumsy, loud machine. Amazing how far we've come.
I'm watching this on my 6 inch 2019 iPhone 11 Pro Max while walking in a park in Lugano Switzerland. Technology is becoming indistinguishable to Magic.. By 2059... 40 years from NOW i cant even fathom what electronics will be like..
probably just sitting around rusting. as the human race will be wiped out by a virus.
Their prediction where spot on!! try that yourself for the next 30-40 years and nail it like they did.
I wish I lived in this time period. So cool. The technology back then was so interesting. I hope when I die this is my after life. Computers are soooo cool.
This is amazing, like I have no words to describe how amazing this is. Even if I were to watch it a year later I would still be amazed as I am right now. And now I'll see you next year, same day.
Having lived through that entire era as a teen it seems strange to see it again. The part we did not realize at the time was the impact of connectivity. Modems were a step in that direction. But once the Internet hit things really exploded. I think we rely on the Internet too much these days. When the Internet drops we can't play our games or stream our videos.
.....Wow!.....2016....their predictions are true, yet little did they know!....I love the old days, even the ones before my time! just to think of what came next! if I can travel to 1980 and tell them about today!!! anyway great video, totally enjoyed it.
Person: "I just bought a smart plug we live in such an advanced time"
"1980s computer turns off and on everything in house."
1980s computer: Am I a joke to you?
I watched this because I answered "yes" to all 3 questions near the beginning of this program
Computers will be everywhere
That was a fun watch. Thanks for sharing it.
This makes me wish that I could go back in time or an identical dimension with some decades of delay from ours and tell someone about technology in our time.
I talked a lot to Radio Shack personnel, in the day. The Tandy RLX had a bad disk drive, three drives later, and a three year warranty took care of the repair. I sold it years later. I miss it.
This is an amazing snapshot in time. Noting has changed. Just gotten better and more integrated.
Crazy to think that literally everyone in this video died such a long time ago
The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated. :)
@@TitaniumGamerGM Then tell me your social security number so I can verify it's you and you're living. Only a liar wouldn't.
Going down memory lane.. I had a Lear Sigler ADM 2 at one point in my life. I fished it out of the garbage, not knowing what it was.. real neat collectors piece. Sadly, lost it in storage.. (parents stashed it at the time, we moved, they didn't pay storage, it go byebye...) it's out there somewhere...
1980: Computer is like an internal combustion engine. People don't know how to apply it until someone implement and demonstrate it.
Future: *Uses for spreading Memes*
Good analogy though, from someone in 1980... he recognised accurately that computing power would be used in functions and aspects of life not yet envisaged on 1980, just like when the internal combustion engine came along... and he was correct
A computer doesn’t take gas like a car though the software sure has been as big ongoing expense as running a car.
Amazing how they were right about what computers will do😃
OG PC!.
The home computer in many ways have evolved into the smartphone age we live in today, small pocket computers that are strong enough to do any task.
Except for the high demanding video games that are on PC and consoles, but that's isn't far off either..
These days you can even dock your smartphone as a desktop PC and your phone as your regular PC..
21:01 we can apply this very same mindset amd outlook to our concerns regarding AI and technology today. Very smart lady.
Me from “FM Attack - Fade Away”. It was pleasure to watch full film
As soon as I started this great documentary I went to increase the resolution to 480.... wait what?
I enjoy the computer noises and random graphical effects
"I've heard that in the future" - i'm going to use this line in the next team meeting.
Thanks for sharing such an important piece of history!
Amazing find. Thank you
30 years from now videos of today will look like this, everything old and outdated but fascinating for them to see us use all this outdated and discontinued technology as if it's state of the art. They'll laugh, and then wait 30 years more for their world to become obsolete, and on and on.
What sorcery is this computer???
+Henrik Kongsgaard Jakobsen A spell that is highly addictive and surveillance Your every move to benefit the agenda of the new religion.... global fascism!
It is very often shoved down Your throat whetever You like it or not.
Luddite kryptonite
Knowest thou not? This be work of the devil! Get thee behind me, computer satan!
wow, a lot of PETs.
The ATM has been around since the 1970s
That little demo at the end, AppleVision off the Apple II DOS 3.3 disk... That was a great little blast from the past.
What’s sad is I remember getting a computer and my neighbor having one in the early 90’s. Maybe 93. But it was used literally as tool of education.
Now it seems that people have forgotten what computers were originally meant to before and now they are just used a distraction.
I haven’t been able to afford Wi-Fi for idk 8 years now at least and no computer for about 9. I miss every moment and what all I could’ve learned versus what I have with just a cell phone (which yes still a computer but not the same)
I wrote an 80 column terminal emulation application for my Atari 800 in late 1980 so I could work from home to the office VAX.
I wanted to make sure I could play Star Raiders when I didn't have to work though.
I have a computer on my wrist!
I'm gonna grab my laptop and go back in time to 80s.
The good old days. I wish I lived in that era. Where every thing was so cool and retro. I wished I used that old computer.
So you want one now
YES!!!!
So this is what "TerminalMontage" originally meant
In another decade someone will create a GUI so beautiful, everyone will sit and stare at it and not do anything else, and civilization will finally end.
the sad thing is kids today only look at computers for playing games and facebook and twitter and nothing else wen computers can do sooo much more but god for bid if there computer cant play that next hit game they call it a piece of crap and throw it out for another computer that can play it wen that computer they throw out is still good and works just fine and can still be used for so much more.........and trust me i know i have 9 computers i found in the trash hell i'm typing this comment out on a trash found one now and theres nothing wrong with it..........
I don't ever toss a PC. I just continually upgrade and then sell the old components on eBay.
The sad thing is the lack of software industry. Dad and I have nothing we need on 10 we couldn't do better either on our Windows 7/XP or Linux Mint. Linux Mint is just starting to get good now so good that Microsoft just announced they dropped SQL and went to Linux based one.
The funny thing is is what MS is basically saying is open source is the future as they don't have smart enough people to keep their own shit together. They have only phone app techs who know how to quickly put together a shiny lightweight app but anything beyond that is (????).
@@kylehill3643 Microsoft aren't stupid. They're diving into open source to lock people into their proprietary APIs. It's the same business model sitting on top of an open source OS.
Gaming is one of the major factors that's pushed the development of computer systems so I wouldn't knock it entirely. And this wasteful nature just means that those who are happier without the latest most powerful gaming systems don't have to pay as much for a computer that suits their needs. Not everyone has so many uses for a computer either and that's fine, not everyone wants to program, edit media etc.
such hope for the future. all this work and progress to watch cat videos
You don't like cat videos?
Nah... For watching pussy....
Interesting i love to watch retros
I feel so bad that I missed everything from this time ;(
Can someone explain me how the man at 11:57 managed to automate his computer to switch lights on and off? Can I do it with a modern day laptop/pc?
I used X10 technology with a computer interface. X10 is still around: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_(industry_standard)
Thanks for uploading this. It's easy to forget the early days of home computing. I remember the excitement when Sinclair announced the Spectrum with 128k RAM (!)
Back when I was in high school in the mid 80's our computer lab was full of Atari 800 and 800XL computers with 64KB RAM. We used to write BASIC programs on them and play games. I remember being blown away when our computer teacher got in an Atari ST with 1 MB of RAM. I was like, "there's no way you'll ever be able to use that much memory."
It really starts to get interesting around the 7:50 mark when they start talking about the nascent internet.
oh man, if glasses lady knew about the impending proliferation of dating sims!
As the kid in the beginning says, computers will be as common as TV are one day. Indeed computers today are MORE common then TV. I have one TV and 3 computers at home, one laptop, and 2 stationary, one of them I use as a linux machine. No machine have developed more and faster then the computer
This was really interesting. Thanks for posting
Backed up and sent in
Ohhhh! The Commodore PET. I worked in a storehouse where we got one in 1982 for stock control and I was the boffin who was able to use it. I really felt like I was part of the future!
It's amazing how all of those bleeps and bloops and rainbow screens were fascinating and
futuristic back in the day, but now would be viewed as incredibly boring or even moronic.
I remember back in 1984 when my 1st grade class got to use the brand new computer lab fitted with IBM PC Jr.s and there was an educational program that had an intro with a falling man with descending bloops and bleeps and the background cycled through all of the primary colors (PC Jr's graphics being superior to CGA and not being limited to the 4 ugly 4 color pallets of that system), and just being totally enthralled by it.
So interesting. I'm a kid and have never seen any of this! Great upload!