On Dec 24, 6:54=A0pm, Galen <ga...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:52:37 -0500, "Frank J. Lhota"
>
>
>
>
>
> <FrankLho.NOS...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >Although "Astroboy" is no longer being broadcast on Cartoon Network,
the
> >Adult Swim website still has episodes on its video page. Hurray for the
> >technology of video streaming!
>
> >Come to think of it, "Astroboy" provides some interesting insights on
> >technology. Osamu Tezuka created Astroboy in the 1950's, but the story
> >takes place in the year 2000. Like many pop-culture forecasts for this
> >decade, "Astroboy" was too optimistic about some inventions. For
> >example, in the year 2007 we still don't have magnetically suspended
> >automobiles. There are some trains that use this technology, however,
so
> >Tezuka demonstrated some clairvoyance.
>
> >Some of the most im****tant inventions to our current age were not
> >forecast by any of the futuristic tales from decades past. Inventions
in
> >this category include, well, the internet and video streaming. Or
should
> >I say, *most* futuristic fiction did not forecast the internet. I
recall
> >seeing at least two 1960's cartoons that depicted future newspapers as
> >appearing on a TV screen. One was "The Jetsons", the Hanna-Barbera
> >follow-up to "The Flintstones". Yup, "The Jetsons" may be silly, and
> >intentionally so, but it did turn out to be accurate about some aspects
> >of the future in spite of itself.
>
> The internet ... Asimov's Multivac, which predicted a computer
> over Niagra Falls using the water for both power and cooling,
> and connected to everywhere via TELEX.
> Gerrold's _When Harley Was One_ included the idea of a National
> Data Bank.
> As for a decentralized computer system, I'm not seeing anything
> before Christopher Stasheff's _The Warlock In Spite of Himself_
> (1969) - but that was idea that nearly everyone in a (democratic)
> Galactic civilization would have an AI information manager.
>
I think the person who can be claimed as predicting the internet
the earliest is the English novelist E.M. Forester. He describes
something very much like the internet, at least in terms of usenet and
other forms of internet social interaction in his 1907 story, the
Machine Stops. The Machine Stops is rather anti-internet though, it
involves people not interacting with each other in person because they
could do so through the Machine.
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