Wednesday 9 January 2013

1985: THE EAGLE 'PREDICTS' THE INTERNET. ALMOST



This little nugget of information from the EAGLE really caught my eye - and my imagination - way back when in April 1985: Imagine the possibility that computers could "talk" to each other... on the other side of the world!  The future was truly in sight (actually, much more than I could have possibly grasped at that moment).  The possibilities - albeit unlikely - seemed immense.  I had visions of being able to write something - in real time - to someone somewhere.  This article remained lodged in the back of my mind ever since, giving me a smug (albeit still ill-informed) feeling when the internet came to pass.  I finally unearthed it during my holiday-period marathon-scanning session.


I was aware of the movie WARGAMES (1983) but hadn't seen it.  And - of course - it was fantasy.  Wasn't it?  

The TV show WHIZ KIDS (see posts past) had - I suspect - also covered the possibility (but TV still had a freewheelin' approach to the micro computer - as I discovered last night when rewatching the pilot episode of Larson's AUTOMAN - so wasn't a reliable source of information on the computer revolution either) of connected computers but this was cold-hard-confirmation (albeit delivered by the Eagle's own improbably computerised editor*, which probably undermines the reliability of the source if truth be told) that it was possible!

I didn't imagine that this was something that I would ever be able to do (computers - especially with an accessory as fancy as a modem - were still for the rich kids.  Heck, my school only had one computer: a BBC Micro, firmly attached to a trolly) and I didn't see the internet coming but, thanks to this article, it didn't come as a surprise when it did.  And, true to form, the first things I searched for online (in newsgroups) were BABYLON FIVE and THE X-FILES.

One thing that struck me during my scanning sesh was how obsessed with computers the Eagle was in the mid-eighties.  Something that I'd never really clocked at the time, presumably a reflection of my own (relative) lack of interest.

The full page is below.  Enjoy.

* Who not only had the computing power to program EAGLE AND TIGER each week but also acted as a digitised EQUALISER on his Thirteenth Floor

13 APRIL 1985

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