I love it how the "businessman working from home" is actually wearing a suit and tie, rather than sat in the dark in his underpants. And that he's actually doing some work. But I just noticed the woman is being charged 1 new penny for 15 seconds? That's 4p a minute in 1969 money, which would be more like 25p a minute in 2017 money. Not cheap at all! Especially considering everyone was broke in those days.
But, though the film is from 1969 (when new pence were not in use yet), it's set in 1990-so we need to compare the rate of 4p a minute in 1990 and what that would be nowadays after inflation.
Amazing how they essentially predicted fibre to home broadband, video conferencing and working from home. The equipment they're using looks like something from Nineteen Eighty Four but the basic principles are there.
@PhilInSuffolk The term "new pence" is a pretty good giveaway on the date, it would be between when decimalisation was anounced in 1966 and when it was implemented in 1971
Brilliant, the lady walks down stairs, is paged, which only works in the building for some reason, (they had wide area paging in the 70's, less than 10 years after this) and she thenhas to walk back upstairs! They never thought that after 30 years she might just be able to take the phone with her. I still find it amazing that anyone would think people would actually want a videophone as well! :-)
They kept this idea back in the 60's that by the turn of the century we would all be using video for calls instead of voice, well its 2011 and we still don't want it. We do have video coms though, Skype is huge. I bet no one thought we'd be using it for free though!
When Telefonbau u Normalzeit were developing video telephones ( Dusseldorf 1971 ) there were comments made that video telephones would never catch on in the domestic market. One reason was that people would want to be "properly dressed " before they answered the phone. I seem to recall privacy would have to be ensured by providing a cover over the lens of the camera
They tend miss everything really bad and they tend to not realize that other technologies would change as well. IOW, they assume everything else stays the same except the particular technology they are focusing on. They think telecommunications gets faster, but nothing else.
I love the sense of humor in this video. Almost all the "visions of the future" are far from utopian. They're mostly just normal people going through the usual troubles, except with the conveniences of technology.
So many different tech items crammed into that one unit (fax, answering machine, pager, etc) Who knew each would end up being implemented on their own before broadband as we know it came along just after the turn of the century. Amazing how close they were on some of the details
It amazes me how well they predicted the internet back then. Obviously its not exactly what they imagined as far as the devices or how its used exactly, but most of the details about what they do and how it reaches us is very good considering how much work and how many amazing technology miracles it took to make it come to be. They even predict wifi here!
This is a fascinating video and in fact they predicted an Internet type system that does exist, they even spoke about wideband. They only underestimated that we could in fact do by the 1990s when the Internet really took off from the mid to later part of the decade. Video phone has never really caught on yet in a massive way as they predicted over voice only calls, although available for years via video conferencing on the Internet and using phones.
It's interesting to think that they envisioned so much correctly. Also super interesting that they did not assume information could be stored, reviewed and transmitted such as the scanned blueprint that the person had to show in real time while being scanned.
That's so cool! some things haven't happened though like seeing people in pay phones and landlines I don't think they realised that pay phones would faise out due to mobiles :)
"The number on the screen looked like a modern mobile phon number. I diailed it and the first 5 digits did equate to a number I have stored -07845- but having dialed the complete number it wasn't recognised." - It woudn't be, since it's one digit short for a present-day mobile number. But at the time this film was made, 0784 was the STD code for Staines, Middlesex (assigned originally as 0ST4). That became 01784 with the "PhONEday" change of 1995 and the plan to move all mobile numbers to the 07 range.
MrJacMac suspects fakery here, but like the poster, I remember descriptions in the USA of digital transmission of information over coaxial cable as far back as the mid 1970s. This is genuine "gee whiz!" information, typical of the era. My social studies book in elementary school promised everybody picture phones by 1975.
I was given the video by a colleague and he had titled it as I have here - so I assume it was made in the very late 60s. Digital transmission was well known when I joined the Post Office in 1974, so it would certainly have been part of the future in the late 60s.
Love this. I like the fact that the 07nnn format for uk "future numbers" had already been decided and how analogue all the utilities were. Plus, it was cabletel in Britain who seemed to lay the co-axial cable, not gpo/bt. I saw this film at Goonhilly & the 9mm thin Sony-Ericsson w880 in my pocket could do video calling, email, Walkman & Cybershot. Astonishing.
David Paul Morgan I just realized that. The 078 configuration. Just goes to show you, they were on about it for 30 years. Oh, and the cables in the roadside boxes. Internet service? Hm... That's been around since the early 1940s, it was only reserved for military.
Amazing- its actually from the very early 70s tho- note the reference to the New Penny and the fact it was made by Post Office Telecommunications rather than Telephones. Also the van on the model would still have been dark green in 69.
Nobody considered that there just wouldn't be much demand for video phones. It just wasn't worth the initial investment (and the infringement of privacy) given it just isn't necessary to see the other person.
of course the "slow scan" fax was already available at the time, and digital exchanges were being planned in the late 60's. The first videophones had been shown years before this. The use of coax cables envisaged as optical fibre was only very new and limited
i am surprised at how accurate this is. This describes internet. notice how he says that the video is encoded using digital coding. everything here was available in the 90's, or early 2000's. the stuff looks a little different, but its close.
Bryce Callow Digital audio was theorized way back in the 1930s. By 1975 digital audio recording was available at the studio level. In the late 60's, telephone companies were certainly working towards digital voice signals as it allows more simultaneous calls to be carried on a physical cable.
The number on the screen looked like a modern mobile phon number. I diailed it and the first 5 digits did equate to a number I have stored -07845- but having dialed the complete number it wasn't recognised. Pity
@tsangari I should tell my mum what ideas some people had, when she was young, because she always says to me, that grandmother/grandpa even had no telephone in the 60s or 70s. I'm looking forward to her reaction :D.
badnewswade: spoiler? Are you kidding me? Also, it seems like the main thing here is networking, regardless of function. They basically envisioned an internet for specifically communication. The main difference that would change how life would have been envisioned here and how it acutally turned out was the advent of home computers. They are dialing into a time-shared main CPU at the bank and such here. I used to do this as a kid in 1992 (I was 8) dialing into the library database and such.
No, I think it was made in the 1990's or later. How come he sounds like Mr. Chumney Warner. I love the way she laughs just after being told it would be over 25 years before they can get married at all.
Even BT messed with video in the day. I bet they learned the same lesson Bell did, that they'd have to build an entirely separate switching system for video.
Wow, what a great movie. Looks like they were 10 years off though. Interestingly, the telephone and the networks part (internet) are still separate, probably due to the phone / cell companies monopoly. When the entire earth is blanked in the inter webs we'll be done with them for good. Probably not going to happen for quite a while.
So clunky compared to an iPhone... or the internet. At least they mentioned a computer, but little did they know how underestimated they would be in years to come.
Patrick Roach The Philips Compact Cassette (just "cassette"to the kiddies). actually came out in 1962. Used mainly for dictation and other low fidelity use originally. Dolby NR made cassettes mainstream for music in the early/mid 1970s.
After they were married, he didn't even want to look over the top of his newspaper to "See her"...in her curlers. A mortgage: the purpose of life: I think not. (Interesting that the telephone number the woman dialed began "07..." !).
@themasterofmovies no sir....that is incorrect......invented 1962 and I think they came out to market between 1963 and 1964. I recall my dad working for Philips (Australia) at this time, and we still have some original cassettes and players from shortly after that! I think you must be a youngster?...If not, please take that as a compliment..(I wish I was!!) .cheers.
3:20 We can also stream high quality porn and the inane thoughts of anyone in the world on Twitter. You can tell everyone you're about to take a shit and everyone in the world can be a TV star!
every one call thees predictions.. but I mean its s consept and an idea at 1960 so people just have seen it back then and then tought that would be cool and then they just started to develope more that technology.
She sounds really thrilled to be seeing him tonight
Marvelous 😭 lool
This is a reminder that modern tech didn't just appear out of nowhere.
I find it relaxing to watch videos about expectations of the future
Now we have video phones, no-one seems to want to use them and normal audio calls are still the most popular?
Weird ay?
Unless you’re drunk then video chat seems to be popular.
Very interesting to watch. I was surprised when they mentioned digital transmission with pulse-width modulation, in the 1960s!
Thats how far behind reality is from research.
PCM dates from the end of the war.
I love it how the "businessman working from home" is actually wearing a suit and tie, rather than sat in the dark in his underpants. And that he's actually doing some work.
But I just noticed the woman is being charged 1 new penny for 15 seconds? That's 4p a minute in 1969 money, which would be more like 25p a minute in 2017 money. Not cheap at all! Especially considering everyone was broke in those days.
But, though the film is from 1969 (when new pence were not in use yet), it's set in 1990-so we need to compare the rate of 4p a minute in 1990 and what that would be nowadays after inflation.
Amazing how they essentially predicted fibre to home broadband, video conferencing and working from home. The equipment they're using looks like something from Nineteen Eighty Four but the basic principles are there.
@PhilInSuffolk The term "new pence" is a pretty good giveaway on the date, it would be between when decimalisation was anounced in 1966 and when it was implemented in 1971
words like high definition! WOW didnt think they had that back then! lol
Yes Marvelous, I remember watching this on the intranet years ago. I'm looking forward to showing it to her indoors
This must be from early 70s - the Call fee is time per "new penny", which didn't come into use until 1971.
Brilliant, the lady walks down stairs, is paged, which only works in the building for some reason, (they had wide area paging in the 70's, less than 10 years after this) and she thenhas to walk back upstairs!
They never thought that after 30 years she might just be able to take the phone with her.
I still find it amazing that anyone would think people would actually want a videophone as well!
:-)
They kept this idea back in the 60's that by the turn of the century we would all be using video for calls instead of voice, well its 2011 and we still don't want it.
We do have video coms though, Skype is huge. I bet no one thought we'd be using it for free though!
When Telefonbau u Normalzeit were developing video telephones ( Dusseldorf 1971 ) there were comments made that video telephones would never catch on in the domestic market. One reason was that people would want to be "properly dressed " before they answered the phone. I seem to recall privacy would have to be ensured by providing a cover over the lens of the camera
They got the bit about home prices spot on, didn't they?
Does your mummy know you have such a dirty mouth? She'd wash it out with soap if she did
This is basically describing FTTN/FTTB using coax. This is pretty advanced shit for the 60s.
The theory for FTTN/FTTB has been around since about the 50's but but the tech was to limited then
James, why did you have to spoil your comment with *** ?
They tend miss everything really bad and they tend to not realize that other technologies would change as well. IOW, they assume everything else stays the same except the particular technology they are focusing on. They think telecommunications gets faster, but nothing else.
I love the sense of humor in this video. Almost all the "visions of the future" are far from utopian. They're mostly just normal people going through the usual troubles, except with the conveniences of technology.
They're being completely serious 😭😂
So many different tech items crammed into that one unit (fax, answering machine, pager, etc) Who knew each would end up being implemented on their own before broadband as we know it came along just after the turn of the century. Amazing how close they were on some of the details
I’m surprised how it shows a modern mobile tel number
It amazes me how well they predicted the internet back then. Obviously its not exactly what they imagined as far as the devices or how its used exactly, but most of the details about what they do and how it reaches us is very good considering how much work and how many amazing technology miracles it took to make it come to be. They even predict wifi here!
This is a fascinating video and in fact they predicted an Internet type system that does exist, they even spoke about wideband. They only underestimated that we could in fact do by the 1990s when the Internet really took off from the mid to later part of the decade. Video phone has never really caught on yet in a massive way as they predicted over voice only calls, although available for years via video conferencing on the Internet and using phones.
It's interesting to think that they envisioned so much correctly. Also super interesting that they did not assume information could be stored, reviewed and transmitted such as the scanned blueprint that the person had to show in real time while being scanned.
Although they have used different terminology, its scary how much of this is spot on!
Pretty impressive stuff !
That's so cool! some things haven't happened though like seeing people in pay phones and landlines I don't think they realised that pay phones would faise out due to mobiles :)
I'm sold! Where can I pick up one of these business telecom systems?
Funny how right they were but they did not go far enough or predict the advance of electronics .
"The number on the screen looked like a modern mobile phon number. I diailed it and the first 5 digits did equate to a number I have stored -07845- but having dialed the complete number it wasn't recognised."
- It woudn't be, since it's one digit short for a present-day mobile number. But at the time this film was made, 0784 was the STD code for Staines, Middlesex (assigned originally as 0ST4). That became 01784 with the "PhONEday" change of 1995 and the plan to move all mobile numbers to the 07 range.
I did the same 😂
@@andrewbeadle1517 I didn't.
Had the phone companies not been broken up, this is probably what we would have got.
This has a definite Mystery Science Theater 3000 feel to it,...
What sorcery is this?
Miss Johnson is very pretty and has great legs!
this is stunning prediction .its actually a macbook
MrJacMac suspects fakery here, but like the poster, I remember descriptions in the USA of digital transmission of information over coaxial cable as far back as the mid 1970s. This is genuine "gee whiz!" information, typical of the era. My social studies book in elementary school promised everybody picture phones by 1975.
I was given the video by a colleague and he had titled it as I have here - so I assume it was made in the very late 60s. Digital transmission was well known when I joined the Post Office in 1974, so it would certainly have been part of the future in the late 60s.
Is there a off hook tone up there that goes like a siren which is a howler? Can you do a video on that, please? I wanna hear that howler. Thank you.
Can't be earlier than 1971, as refers to "new pennies".
The wideband coaxial cable network is for porn.
They must have known that.
Is surprising how much of this stuff we actually do have, if not in a slightly different form.
At 4:04 is she trying to reach Mr. Hardbottle? How hard is his bottle. :\
New pennys were introduced in 1971...
In 4:04 is not the skype pit?
The ring right😲
Yep, we had all that in the 1990s
Wow....I feel like giving my PS3 a big hug.
Love this. I like the fact that the 07nnn format for uk "future numbers" had already been decided and how analogue all the utilities were. Plus, it was cabletel in Britain who seemed to lay the co-axial cable, not gpo/bt. I saw this film at Goonhilly & the 9mm thin Sony-Ericsson w880 in my pocket could do video calling, email, Walkman & Cybershot. Astonishing.
David Paul Morgan I just realized that. The 078 configuration. Just goes to show you, they were on about it for 30 years. Oh, and the cables in the roadside boxes. Internet service? Hm... That's been around since the early 1940s, it was only reserved for military.
I want the paper thingymajigggg to save things on a photo thingy off screens. screw print screening on the thingymabob and then printing.
millimetric radio link?
There are plans of using it in future 5g mobiles I think
You can buy it today. 802.11ad/WiGig.
It just means extremely short wavelength in this context I think.
Can't Wait!
Was this made in the 60's-70's or made in 90's made to look like its in the 60's or 70's?
Amazing- its actually from the very early 70s tho- note the reference to the New Penny and the fact it was made by Post Office Telecommunications rather than Telephones. Also the van on the model would still have been dark green in 69.
You can see the beginnings of Prestel there :)
Nobody considered that there just wouldn't be much demand for video phones. It just wasn't worth the initial investment (and the infringement of privacy) given it just isn't necessary to see the other person.
of course the "slow scan" fax was already available at the time, and digital exchanges were being planned in the late 60's. The first videophones had been shown years before this. The use of coax cables envisaged as optical fibre was only very new and limited
it would suggest 70s as he references "one new penny"
i am surprised at how accurate this is. This describes internet. notice how he says that the video is encoded using digital coding. everything here was available in the 90's, or early 2000's. the stuff looks a little different, but its close.
Bryce Callow Digital audio was theorized way back in the 1930s. By 1975 digital audio recording was available at the studio level. In the late 60's, telephone companies were certainly working towards digital voice signals as it allows more simultaneous calls to be carried on a physical cable.
Imagine if humans still watching this in the year of 3000 so ancient.
The number on the screen looked like a modern mobile phon number. I diailed it and the first 5 digits did equate to a number I have stored -07845- but having dialed the complete number it wasn't recognised. Pity
LOL at 3:00 - that is so great.
@PhilInSuffolk i think this was either 69 or VERY early 70's
Says 1 new penny so must be 1971
@tsangari
I should tell my mum what ideas some people had, when she was young, because she always says to me, that grandmother/grandpa even had no telephone in the 60s or 70s.
I'm looking forward to her reaction :D.
The purchase price of £5,250 for the property (7.35) could be only 2 or 3 months repayment on the mortgage today!!
The UK forging ahead with already obsolete co-ax cable, whilst in the USA, fiber optics are being utilized.
@themasterofmovies
cheers buddy!
badnewswade: spoiler? Are you kidding me?
Also, it seems like the main thing here is networking, regardless of function. They basically envisioned an internet for specifically communication.
The main difference that would change how life would have been envisioned here and how it acutally turned out was the advent of home computers. They are dialing into a time-shared main CPU at the bank and such here.
I used to do this as a kid in 1992 (I was 8) dialing into the library database and such.
5:57 so glad the noisy shoes never came in to fashion.
Now that my friends, is a secretary! Woof!
No, I think it was made in the 1990's or later.
How come he sounds like Mr. Chumney Warner.
I love the way she laughs just after being told it would be over 25 years before they can get married at all.
These people so own the patents on Apple's FaceChat app. I'd sue the crap out of Apple.
british phones have 2 short rings while the call is going thru where as american phones have one longer ring
Perhaps the two greatest surprises of the twentieth century were the fall of the Soviet Union and the Internet.
I thought you were going to suggest that one of them was the existence of the Post Office Research Labs.
@MrJacMac1986
It was made in the 1960s.
they were prodicting the FUTURE. They knew the new penny was planned
Even BT messed with video in the day. I bet they learned the same lesson Bell did, that they'd have to build an entirely separate switching system for video.
4:54 = google maps! lol
Well, we DO have webcams.
Yes Marvelous....!!!
@Goodash21 Sounds really chirpy doesn't she - lol....
I work in mortgages. I had a good laugh, as the discussions are not that vastly different! I have more hair, mind you...
Wow, what a great movie. Looks like they were 10 years off though. Interestingly, the telephone and the networks part (internet) are still separate, probably due to the phone / cell companies monopoly. When the entire earth is blanked in the inter webs we'll be done with them for good. Probably not going to happen for quite a while.
So clunky compared to an iPhone... or the internet. At least they mentioned a computer, but little did they know how underestimated they would be in years to come.
@superspit no, cassettes were not around until 69
Patrick Roach The Philips Compact Cassette (just "cassette"to the kiddies). actually came out in 1962. Used mainly for dictation and other low fidelity use originally. Dolby NR made cassettes mainstream for music in the early/mid 1970s.
almost like a monty python sketch!
After they were married, he didn't even want to look over the top of his newspaper to "See her"...in her curlers.
A mortgage: the purpose of life: I think not.
(Interesting that the telephone number the woman dialed began "07..." !).
Looks like science fiction!
@themasterofmovies
no sir....that is incorrect......invented 1962 and I think they came out to market between 1963 and 1964.
I recall my dad working for Philips (Australia) at this time, and we still have some original cassettes and players from shortly after that!
I think you must be a youngster?...If not, please take that as a compliment..(I wish I was!!) .cheers.
It's a fair cop(per)!
Huh.. they predicted video calls but got the year wrong
My, weren't they avant-garde? :)
7:39 she is actually quite cute
Did Stanley Kubrick see this?
it exists
I want to bring my iPhone back in the 60's and show them the trailer of Skyrim.
3:20 We can also stream high quality porn and the inane thoughts of anyone in the world on Twitter. You can tell everyone you're about to take a shit and everyone in the world can be a TV star!
WOW! Like the way that at end, the telecommuter wishes he could spend less time with his family! (delete that if you want - spoiler)
every one call thees predictions.. but I mean its s consept and an idea at 1960 so people just have seen it back then and then tought that would be cool and then they just started to develope more that technology.
Skype in the 60s lol
The mortgage gal is cute.
@youngrelleus19 u r just getting video phone ??? omg i'm sure that u have an i phone !!!! XD
@cuddlyable3 Fax technology is pretty old, at least the tech part of it. Commercial acceptance is another thing.
A house for £5250? Those were the days...