“ What ’ll It Be Like in 2000 A.D. ? ” enquire Popular Science in its April 1962 trailer of the marvel to be found at the Seattle World ’s Fair , which opened that calendar month . First up on Popular Science ’s circuit of the future was the Standard Oil diorama . Not surprisingly it boast a host of gas - guzzling fomite for commonwealth and zephyr — and failed to predict either fuel shortage or oil at $ 100 a barrel .
Brobdingnagian , rocket engine airliners that can take off and land vertically soar through the sky . Individuals take to the gentle wind in scooters . bragging jet chopper dish as aerial jalopy and trucks . A few gyrocopters — dumb as a child’s play — float overhead .
Air scooters instead of fountain packs ? This was a bold exit from the recognised canon of twenty-first - century gadgetry . Anyway , for commuters , there were jet - propelled monorails ( a step up from the galvanic I that take visitors to the fairgrounds ) and rocket subways “ roar[ing ] through plastic tubes . ” thruway were electronically insure and “ come on with colored plastic , various chromaticity signal the dissolute , tiresome , and departure lane . ”
General Motors expanded the electronic highway melodic theme , suppose automobile ( perhaps even the Firebird III image above ) that were “ steered , accelerated , brake or stop without any assistance from their drivers . ” ( Amend this to “ from their driver ’ brains , ” and I think we would all agree this is happening now . ) Instead “ various current - carrying wires [ were ] lay to rest in the paving material . Pickup coils . . . go up on the cars ” flashed signal to “ electrohydraulic servosystem ” which did all the workplace . “ Meanwhile , the gadget driver can safely take a cat sleep if he likes . ”
Plastic - fence houses got their electricity from a “ petroleum - power fuel cellular telephone . . . the size of a standard function desk , ” at least according to Standard Oil . Another view was presented “ in the Fair ’s theme diorama , ‘ The World of Tomorrow . ' ”
Here are houses put together with chemical substance fixing in position of nails , built of color - impregnated materials that never need painting , and kept neat by gamy - frequency sound . The homes have solar ovens for use on clear days , microwave oven ovens for tempestuous 24-hour interval . Each death chair or couch can be stir up or cool individually to befit the sitter . heat gimmick are woven into the rugs and installed in the wall .
Dwellers would wear “ lightweight , all - year , disposable clothing and improbably long-wearing plastic shoes . ” They ’d sleep on disposable sheets and eat from disposable dishes . Once again , frozen food was the dinner party of the future . It would be stored in “ big cellar freezers which would rise to the kitchen at the touch of a clit . ” “ domesticated computers , sometimes casually given their direction over the telephone , would be your servants . ”
Where the futurists of 1962 really shone , however , was in the field of communicating . AT&T predicted fiber optics ( “ enormous conversational traffic will bait on beams of light ” ) , cordless phones , videophones , teleconferencing , and the internet ( “ Between offices hundreds of miles apart , motorcar will ‘ talk ’ to machine , as estimator mechanically feed data to one another . ” ) RCA claimed that all televisions would be color , ranging in sizing from that of a book , to “ a very large set , only five inches thick ” ( Brobdingnagian equate to today ’s flat - panels , of course , but slender for the daylight ) . “ One such console will offer a option of alive or preselected taped TV shows , plus stereophonic radio and tape recording recorder”—a crude home amusement center .
Even the American Library Association got in on the act , predicting computer that “ at the wrench of a telephone dial ” would “ be sick out complete lists of reference book of account on any subject . And if you want to take a look at a rare picture or manuscript in some distant depository library , you could do so by unopen - circumference television . ” Photo : Seattle Post - Intelligencer
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