Kitz Forum

Chat => Tech Chat => Topic started by: kitz on March 18, 2016, 05:31:41 PM

Title: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: kitz on March 18, 2016, 05:31:41 PM
Wow... someone who works for an ISP just found this link which I had to share on here because I found this one really interesting.
Its worth watching it all, but starting at about 2:30 it talks about the limitations of copper and the advantages of fibre,

How sad

"At the moment regulations restrict what services can be offered by phone companies /snip/
but in America....
"

"Here in Britian though restrictions still apply -  BT for example arent allowed to do cable TV but they are developing some interesting ideas to get what they can out of their existing copper"
and at this point even talks about them providing TV &  VoD etc.


The final paragraph [bear in mind this was 1994]

Quote
Its ironic that it will come on old phone lines and it could stay that way - Unless Britain develops its own vision about what sort of Information Super Highway it wants"

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8cnP-RtRHU[/youtube]
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: Ronski on March 18, 2016, 06:00:11 PM
Tomorrow's World, now there's a program I used to watch.  Interesting video, 22 years later our internet is still coming down copper wires for most of us,  but a lot faster even for Weaver.
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: Weaver on March 18, 2016, 08:14:42 PM
 ;D
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: WWWombat on March 22, 2016, 12:02:19 AM
Wow. Mosaic. How ... quaint ;) And an autoresponder message from the white House.

Nice find kitz.

And the presenter's thoughts on her new-found fame?
http://www.katebellingham.co.uk/s-t-e-m/imagine-a-world/
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: kitz on March 22, 2016, 06:47:48 PM
And the presenter's thoughts on her new-found fame?
http://www.katebellingham.co.uk/s-t-e-m/imagine-a-world/

They really should bring it back.   
I think 'Click' is possibly about the nearest to it, but for me it doesn't quite cut the mustard like tomorrows world did.
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on March 23, 2016, 12:29:23 AM
They really should bring it back.   
I think 'Click' is possibly about the nearest to it, but for me it doesn't quite cut the mustard like tomorrows world did.

No comparison IMO between click and tomorrow's' world.   I've tried to watch 'click', but the topics and the camera angles change so fast it just makes me dizzy.     

Very good reporting report by Kate in that article but for me, Tomorrow's World always meant Raymond Baxter and James Burke, even if Kate is (oops, non PC) prettier. :-[

Veering off-topic, remember 'Horizon', and how fascinating it always was?   It still exists of course, but a poor cousin of what it used to be. :(
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: plexy on March 23, 2016, 12:38:19 AM
echoing sentiment - a brilliant find. I was a TW watcher, religiously. For a lad hungry for tech, in a country village with limited local library stock, TW, some random channel 2 late night education progs and my acoustic coupler were my lifelines. One of the tomorrows world id love to find is the one where they talked about GSM and digital cellular. That particular episode had a lot of bearing on how my life panned out.

*edit* click is the nearest that we have today, but definately a completely different league in terms of technological depth.

for example, in the episode I mention above, TW talked about some of the intricacies of the foundations of the GSM network (though still high level compared to specs), but if the cellular revolution was just beginning today then in 'click' the level of technical detail would be significantly simplified compared to TW. $0.02
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: roseway on March 23, 2016, 07:21:40 AM
Quote
Veering off-topic, remember 'Horizon', and how fascinating it always was?   It still exists of course, but a poor cousin of what it used to be.

Several years ago Horizon appeared to get taken over by a group of student graphic artists who had great fun creating graphical effects which had little or nothing to do with the subject in hand. In one episode about the Big Bang the same graphical explosion was shown 13 times (I counted them), more or less every time the phrase "Big Bang" was spoken. This graphic of course bore no resemblance to the actual event, it was just a colourful explosion. :mad:
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: kitz on March 23, 2016, 09:44:44 PM

*edit* click is the nearest that we have today, but definitely a completely different league in terms of technological depth.

for example, in the episode I mention above, TW talked about some of the intricacies of the foundations of the GSM network (though still high level compared to specs), but if the cellular revolution was just beginning today then in 'click' the level of technical detail would be significantly simplified compared to TW. $0.02

You just hit the nail on the head.   TW actually talked about how the technology worked.  Click just glosses over it. 

I just found a page on the BBC website that has an archive of some of Tomorrows World Archives. 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/

It may be that the episode you mentioned is one there -  Mobile phone  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/tomorrowsworld/8018.shtml)-  note how its 7 mins, showing both how it works in action and explaining the technology.   Click would have covered it in 2 mins at most.
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: Weaver on March 24, 2016, 12:00:38 AM
The Big Bang wasn't an explosion in (empty) space. All of space expanded and there was no point 'where the Big Bang happened'. It was everywhere, a dramatic cooling and enlargement of all space.

This I'm sure you already know.
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: BigBunny on March 24, 2016, 12:01:49 AM
In the early 1990's I had returned to college, now Glyndwr University, initially doing electronics and then onto computing.  I used to speak and email the BT research labs and obtained loads of information.  I knew about ADSL before it was even mentioned in the press, and the limitations of it.  (BT could have released it earlier but had put a lot of money into ISDN and wanted to get as much money back on that first.  If my memory serves me well it was the government putting pressure on BT that they rolled it out when they did.)

The discussion regarding Click Vs TW is an interesting one.  I really like knowing what happens, how things work, etc.,  and I would imagine most on Kitz are the same. However the average person that uses technology has no interest in that and only want to use it.  (Attention spans and the ability to take in information on a percentage basis appears to be diminishing.)  So for the average person Click is probably more than enough.  Haven't you been trying to explain something to someone why they have an issue and they respond "I'm not interested in that I just want it to work!"

During the mid 90's to 2000 I was involved with a community radio station and one of the presenters was always using the "Information Super Highway" expression that it became superfluous. It may have been something to do with me as I never liked the phrase.
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: burakkucat on March 24, 2016, 12:18:32 AM
. . . always using the "Information Super Highway" expression that it became superfluous. It may have been something to do with me as I never liked the phrase.

I've never liked it and detest its usage, along with the excessive usage of superlatives in an attempt to qualify grades of xDSL performance.  :-X

[b*cat senses that a grumpy moment is about to arrive . . .  >:(  ]
Title: Re: 1994 - Information Super Highway.
Post by: sevenlayermuddle on March 24, 2016, 12:44:27 AM
Even the word 'broadband' could upset me, if I allowed myself to be that sensitive.   It is a word with subtle definitions, that may be context-dependent, and I'd speculate there would be constructive disagreement in these forums if we tried to pin it down.

But it most certainly does not simply equate to 'fast', and yet that seems to be its universally understood meaning, in this age of dumbed down technology.   :(