Is there anything funnier than seeing the future, as brought to you by the 1980s? This 1981 news report talks about the growing idea of an “electronic newspaper”, a wonder that takes just two hours to download to your computer.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WCTn4FljUQ&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
This is a fascinating glimpse back into history. The device used to connect the computers is an acoustic coupler. I have not seen one for over 30 years.This device predates the electronic modem by translating each keyboard character into a unique audible tone corresponding to a particular keyboard character. Each character is translated into a tone which is transmitted and then reconverted to a computer character, one character at a time.The transmission rate is exceptionally slow which is why it would take two hour to transmit the newspaper content. It is staggering to reflect how far we have come in 30 years in terms of data transmission speeds.