1994: Stone Knives, Bear Skins, and “The Internet”

Tom Brokaw fifteen years ago nattering about this mysterious “Internet.” Fortunately Bill Gates is there it help him along.

Nuggets of note:

1. Holy crap, that notebook computer’s like 2 inches thick.
2. I love the “Internet Shopping Mall.” No, guys, the Net is not going to actually look like a virtual shopping mall.
3. I don’t know what Bill Gates of ’94 thinks “a long time” is, but welcome to the World of Kindle, Bill.

What’s remarkable is that 1994 is the year I moved to Colorado. Were things actually that primitive then? Well, I was still dialing up to AOL at home on a Mac … I was subscribed (at my work email) to some Internet listservs … but, yeah, I guess it was. I probably would have given a small finger to have access then to what I have access to today.

And, as I recall, every year for about a decade running, was dubbed in the trades as “The Year of the Internet” … until the title was suddenly passe.

“What hath God wrought?”

(Note: the above video is only available in the US. Yeah, there’s that aspect of the modern Internet, too.)