News delivery over the telephone, directly to a “com-pu-ter”

 Posted by on 29 January 2009  Vintage/Retro
Jan 292009
 

Back in 1981, even, newspapers were looking at computer networks for news delivery. But back then, it was all text: no pictures, no ads. Like Lynx!

It took over two hours to download the entire text of the “tele-paper” and that was at five bucks an hour. Check out the video:

Via the New York Times and TechCrunch.

UPDATE: Several more awesome vintage videos about newspapers transitioning to computers over at Gawker. Like, seriously vintage and seriously awesome.

Grant Hamilton

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Amy Breen

    Hah! I love the prediction “We’ll get all our newspapers and magazines by home computer, but that’s a few years off.”

    I wondered if they expected print newspapers to keep living once they got the spiffy home computer system running better.

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    I think the “business model” was expected to be the same, except newspapers would be able to lay off their press guys and carriers, and people would just use their home printers.

    But I wonder if they thought people would have gigantic broadsheet printers at home? Or if they thought there would be 8.5×11 newspapers (which is where we’re going in the future anyway).