Retro Tech Tuesday: British Telecom's Vision of the Future

It's funny: we walk around with FaceTime on our iPhones/iPads/iPods, and yet it still just doesn't feel like video calling has arrived. Sure high-end "tele-presence" systems from companies like Cisco have infiltrated top companies, but for most of us, our "videophone" interaction is still quite limited.

In hopes of getting us to use our videophones in our pockets a bit more, let's take a look back at how British Telecom (then named General Post Office) envisioned our video calling future:

Retro Tech Tuesday: CompuServe Strikes Back!

In last week's Retro Tech, we featured an ad for Prodigy. In an effort to rekindle the ISP war of the 90's, we bring you this CompuServe ad this week. It's funny how certain things are embedded in your brain, taking up space, and you didn't even know they were up there. I didn't think I would have any recollection of this ad at all, but within the first few seconds, I remembered, disturbingly clearly, the series of images that come rushing out of the computer screen. It's a shame I haven't been using that brain space for something more useful, like say The Breeder's "Cannonball" video.

Retro Tech Tuesday: Let's Head to the Prodigy Diner

According to the YouTube poster MisterSenseless, this video was part of a CD-Rom packaged along with a phone modem. Yes, the visuals are "so 90's," but just as much fun to me is to see and hear what is clearly an early QuickTime codec: if you watched much video on your computer back then, the saturated colors, not-quite-crisp audio, and blocky movement will take you right back:

Retro Tech Tuesday: The Automat

For many of us, myself included, we never had the chance to partake in an Automat in person. For those not familiar, the basic premise involved a cafeteria in which you placed money into machines (or a wall of little windows,) then you would open the window and take your item. Think of it as a giant vending machine selling fresh-made food.

I always thought in our have-it-now, pay with credit world, the concept could be dusted off and tried again, maybe with an organic, or natural food twist.

At any rate, here's a video with some background on one of the most famous Automats: Horn and Hardart in Philadelphia.

Retro Tech Tuesday: Tyco Super Turbo Train

It seems like high-speed rail will never take hold here in the United States. Perhaps if more parents had bought this toy in 80's, the legislators and lawmakers of today would have a more positive view of future rail transport.

The Tyco Super Turbo Train combined an HO scale train track, with the motor technology of slot cars to produce a toy that went "faster than the speed of sound" (at scale.) Be thankful you don't have HO scale-sized ears or I guess you would've heard a sonic boom every time this thing was fired up. I briefly owned a Tyco Super Turbo Train, and I hate to report that as with many toys of the time, it didn't quite live up to the hype. Getting it to stay on the track, and keeping the ultra-light and ultra flimsy cars free of dents was a real chore.

Still, today it is on my shortlist of toys from my youth to purchase off of eBay at three times the price of the original: