Arthur C. Clarke Predicted a Computer Would Fit on a Desk in 1974

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Renowned science fiction writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke made plenty of predictions of the future during his long life; including the notion of a computer that sits on your desk. He even predicted computers would enrich our lives even though we will become dependent upon them. For example he predicts that businessmen could live in other areas around the world and still do their business using the PC.

One day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke makes the bold claim that one day computers will allow people to work from home and access their banking records.
 
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maybe along with his statement was the very first instance of someone saying "thanks, captain obvious"
 
Yeah, people predicted desktop computer, AI, computer personalities, and all well before 1970.

Dora from "Time enough for Love" was a shipboard AI that was described as fitting in a small suitcase...

There were previous examples; the Proud Robot from Kuttner was in 1943, as was a humaniform AI.

The three rules of robotics Asimov proposed dealt with many of the problems of other stories.

"those who forget the past are doomed to relive it." Thus the new Nazism.

We now have the technology to make a totalitarian state very effective.

What we need are people like Johnny, from "The Long Watch". We don't have any of those but we have many Col. Towers.

"Toady" is not a bad word anymore, for some reason.

No one reads anymore; they hide knowledge in books.

Here's a retrospective on today's view of the world. See you guys, it'll be awhile before they unban me.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/23X14HS4gLk

Dr. Asimov would approve, he referenced it in one of his stories.
 
I don't think it is a typo....I believe the date is correct(about desktops in the 70's).The prediction was made in the 50's I think.
He was just late, but he did ok on communication satellites !

:D
 
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Some day there will be computers so powerful they can be your memory so you don't have to remember anything; let you talk to people with the written word and play games and otherwise cause you to withdraw from the world...they will fit in your pocket and I predict the will be here by 2060...oh wait.
 
IIRC Arthur C. Clarke is the inventor of geostationary satellites and foresaw many other tech inventions so don't knock him off. He was a very smart man.

The official inventor of the geostationary satellite was Harold Rosen but I think Clarke wrote about the concept before the 'official' invention. A bit like Jules Verne wrote about submarines way before they were actually invented.
 
IIRC Arthur C. Clarke is the inventor of geostationary satellites and foresaw many other tech inventions so don't knock him off. He was a very smart man.

The official inventor of the geostationary satellite was Harold Rosen but I think Clarke wrote about the concept before the 'official' invention. A bit like Jules Verne wrote about submarines way before they were actually invented.

The first wartime submersible was roughly 50 years before Jules Verne was even born, the Turtle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtle_(submersible)
 
IIRC Arthur C. Clarke is the inventor of geostationary satellites and foresaw many other tech inventions so don't knock him off. He was a very smart man.

The official inventor of the geostationary satellite was Harold Rosen but I think Clarke wrote about the concept before the 'official' invention. A bit like Jules Verne wrote about submarines way before they were actually invented.
It can be hard to trace back who first had an idea like this (and many others) because SciFi authors would frequently barrow ideas from each other (with no threat of copyright infringement it was beneficial to all). Clarke did not come up with the idea for geostationary satellites but does seem to have come up with idea of using them for communication, but no doubt Clarke popularized a lot of ideas what ever their origin. A great writer who understood science (he had math and physics degree).
 
Where is a list of all the "predictions" Arthur C Clark got wrong, I mean other than literally everything in 2001
 
Sorry but this is common sense ... nothing more. When I was a kid I knew there would be electric cars and many other predictions. It wasn't that I was a visionary but rather exercising common sense.
 
Yeah, I was going to say...

Bold claim, indeed!
Being from that era, things were changing fast. The idea that you could work from home and access bank records is more amazing than the PC itself. PC's for the average home were 7 years off form 1974 and those were a radical 7 year. I think a pocket calculator was roughly $100 in 1974 and not all that common. Not being up on what was going on the labs of IBM at the time can be forgiven. Technology has never moved as fast as it did roughly from 1974-1984.

From Wikipedia:
"The first American-made pocket-sized calculator, the Bowmar 901B (popularly termed The Bowmar Brain), measuring 5.2 by 3.0 by 1.5 inches (132 mm × 76 mm × 38 mm), came out in the Autumn of 1971, with four functions and an eight-digit red LED display, for $240, while in August 1972 the four-function Sinclair Executive became the first slimline pocket calculator measuring 5.4 by 2.2 by 0.35 inches (137.2 mm × 55.9 mm × 8.9 mm) and weighing 2.5 ounces (71 g). It retailed for around £79 ($101.28). By the end of the decade, similar calculators were priced less than £5 ($6.41)."
 
Stop dumping on a great man forum warriors. The title of the video states he is predicting, I dont hear him predicting a thing, he is making statements of facts that he knows will come about and he is accurately describing life 26 years in the future in response to a question. Many an armchair quarterback may claim to have "known" what was coming in the future, however could not describe what that was going to look like in everyday life with any accuracy. Sure we have electric cars now but the general public still drives the same combustion engine sleds they did in 1975. Stop comparing yourself to great men of science.
 
computer that sits on desk that most people can reasonably afford and is useful beyond the most "basic" tasks. IBM, military etc had/have things some 10-15 years before folks know they exist, they make, others "evolve" them.

Still though is crazy to think that all the crazy jets and bombs made were using crap processing power and the average smartphone of today would beat the snot out of what they had as "best of the best" computers 20 years or so back at a fraction of the cost in terms of $ and power needed.

Still tape drives are old as shit but still being used because of sheer capacity, some things just do not seem to go away ^.^
 
The turtle is pretty far off from the submarine in Captain Nemo. What he described was more like a modern nuclear submarine.

Pretty sure you mean 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But, yeah Jules' Nautilus was more akin to a nuclear/20th century submarine, it was a more futuristic version of submarines that already existed though.
 
Looks over at the washing-machine-sized case on his second table...

Uh. Houston? We have a problem...
 
What the hell, I sure hope that date is a typo. Seeing as how IBM had a working prototype desktop computer in 1973...

Looking at dad's mutton chops this is a 70's video alright. With an ABC journalist doing the interview that would explain the complete ignorance.

When my dad got a Commodore PET in 1979 all my 17yr old schoolmates couldn't believe I had a computer that fit on a desk. (Townsville, Qld, Australia)

With TV & print media being our sole source of information back then, it's no surprise ignorance of tech trends reigned supreme.
 
Pretty sure you mean 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But, yeah Jules' Nautilus was more akin to a nuclear/20th century submarine, it was a more futuristic version of submarines that already existed though.
Yes, that's what I meant. Been over 30 years since I read it :D
 
i think the only important thing he said that we can take away from that video is "he will take the desktop computer for granted as we do the telephone"

and thats pretty true, even back in the 90s and early 2000s
 
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Kind of like Ron Hubbard and his Scientology. People believing science fiction.
 
When I was a kid in the 70s I remember many predicting by the 2000s it would be a common thing; about as common as air travel; to book a space flight to a space station or to the moon.
We would have flying cars, and robot butlers.
Sitting in your arm chair in 1973; and being a person that is well read on technologies, history, aerospace etc, are such predictions outlandish? The answer is of course not.
Flying cars? That has been the holy grail of personal transportation for 100 years. There has been many, many iterations of such vehicle that could fly and fold into a car like vehicle when on the ground. It is pretty reasonable to assume that given the pace of technological advancement this would be everyday thing 30 years in the future. It isn't the technology that fails us; it is market forces which are much dictated by the economy and government regulation.
By 1973; we have been to the moon several times. It was expected that this 'new frontier' would be everyone's for the taking. What happened? Society changed. If you look at NASA now you find much more interest in exploring Mars; not exploit it's resources and increase our presents in space, but to find evidence of "little green men". And if finding such evidence they will claim this is how life was seeded on Earth. What a pathetic and far cry from the men at NASA on December 24th 1968 did this:

 
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Where is a list of all the "predictions" Arthur C Clark got wrong, I mean other than literally everything in 2001

The tablet computers they used on Discovery 1 are about the closest thing to reality in that film.

If you look at NASA now you find much more interest in exploring Mars; not exploit it's resources and increase our presents in space, but to find evidence of "little green men". And if finding such evidence they will claim this is how life was seeded on Earth.

Wut?

What a pathetic and far cry from the men at NASA on December 24th 1968

The purpose of Apollo wasn't to do science or colonize space or mine for resources. Its purpose was to cement US dominance in aerospace and move the Cold War to a civilian arena.

The Nixon administration and Congress basically cancelled most of the program right after Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. With the USSR's Moon program in shambles there was no race, and thus no political will to keep the program going. There would be no second run of Saturn V rockets; the budget was cut, contracts reshuffled to companies that missed out on Apollo money, and NASA was tasked with focusing on achieving lower cost access to orbit via the Space Shuttle. As it turned out, the technology wasn't ready and the Shuttle ended up being far more expensive and less reliable than expected.
 
When I was a kid in the 70s I remember many predicting by the 2000s it would be a common thing; about as common as air travel; to book a space flight to a space station or to the moon.
We would have flying cars, and robot butlers.
Sitting in your arm chair in 1973; and being a person that is well read on technologies, history, aerospace etc, are such predictions outlandish? The answer is of course not.
Flying cars? That has been the holy grail of personal transportation for 100 years. There has been many, many iterations of such vehicle that could fly and fold into a car like vehicle when on the ground. It is pretty reasonable to assume that given the pace of technological advancement this would be everyday thing 30 years in the future. It isn't the technology that fails us; it is market forces which are much dictated by the economy and government regulation.
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The main problem with flying cars is average people are bad enough at driving let alone flying. We'd need total air automation and a very good automated air traffic control system to make it practical on a large scale. Personally I want transporters, and that "fly" movie was amusing but non-sense...just swat the flies before beaming yourself somewhere ;)--Heisenberg principle be damned.
 
One of my favorite authors and a true visionary. I guess some people just have to tear down great men like Arthur C Clarke in order to feel better about their own paltry existence.
 
Where is a list of all the "predictions" Arthur C Clark got wrong, I mean other than literally everything in 2001


the biggest issue i have with 2001.. it was just BORING.. to me at least. slow.. plodding.. boring.

The only time it made me laugh was once years ago they had a special showing of the new digital version of it over by UCLA and with the digital version of it.. when the pens were "floating" in space.. here you could CLEARLY see the clear plastic wheel they were taped to slowly being turned to simulate "floating"

that made me laugh.
 
the biggest issue i have with 2001.. it was just BORING.. to me at least. slow.. plodding.. boring.

The only time it made me laugh was once years ago they had a special showing of the new digital version of it over by UCLA and with the digital version of it.. when the pens were "floating" in space.. here you could CLEARLY see the clear plastic wheel they were taped to slowly being turned to simulate "floating"

that made me laugh.
That's what the fast forward button is for. It could have used some tighter editing...but the special effects were pretty wow when it came out. They did the same thing in the first Star Trek movie, they were way to impressed with their special effects and spent way to much time showing them off. It's been a long time but 2001 series books were pretty good as I recall.
 
Renowned science fiction writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke made plenty of predictions of the future during his long life; including the notion of a computer that sits on your desk. He even predicted computers would enrich our lives even though we will become dependent upon them. For example he predicts that businessmen could live in other areas around the world and still do their business using the PC.

One day, a computer will fit on a desk (1974) Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke makes the bold claim that one day computers will allow people to work from home and access their banking records.

This is news?

That quote is in the beginning of the "good" steve jobs movie.
 
the biggest issue i have with 2001.. it was just BORING.. to me at least. slow.. plodding.. boring.

The only time it made me laugh was once years ago they had a special showing of the new digital version of it over by UCLA and with the digital version of it.. when the pens were "floating" in space.. here you could CLEARLY see the clear plastic wheel they were taped to slowly being turned to simulate "floating"

that made me laugh.
I think you're mistaking Kubrick's influence. the Sleep Slow effect is there during most of the Shining. Nothing to do with Clarke directly, he may have approved but likely didn't have any say.
 
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