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Inaccurate Media Forecasts from the Past Right or wrong? You be the judge: 1999 "Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons." - Popular Mechanics, 1949 Many early computer scientists felt that only a handful of computers would serve the world's computing needs. This comment from British Physicist Douglas Hartree made in 1951 is fairly typical. "We have a computer here in Cambridge; there is one in Manchester and one at the (National Physical Laboratory). I suppose there ought to be one in Scotland, but that's about all." "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Ken Olson, president and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. "This telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." Western Union internal memo, 1876. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" David Sarnoff's associates responding to his urgings for investment in radio. "I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbook." Thomas Edison, 1922. It took a lot longer than some had anticipated to see color TV in the living rooms of America. For a partial explanation of the delay, see this story of the failed CBS US color television standard. "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have
plenty of messenger boys." "Everything that can be invented has been invented." "640 K [of computer memory] ought to be enough for anybody." "I think there is a world market for about five computers." "Mr. [Bill] Gates's [CEO of Microsoft] own estimate is that by
1990 75-80 percent of IBM compatible computers will be sold with
[IBM's proprietary operating system] OS/2." Satellite TV in Britain "will be a flop." |
