Is it really that prescient? By 1985 there were lots of BBSes you could dial into and connect with people from across the nation. In fact what would become America Online was just starting out as a BBS. The internet was available at most colleges, and tools like email and usenet were in full use. I think his statement is like someone right now saying electric cars will be a huge thing in the future.
I agree. Networked computers were totally part of the popular imagination. Job's quote is after Wargames, Scanners, Tron etc.
The part of Job's quote that can be said to be innovative is he said "for the home" when most at the time were assuming "for the office".
I recently watched a BBC Horizon documentary on microprocessors filmed in 1977 and was very impressed with how they described the world we live in today. They clearly stated the exciting bit was enabling information networks so I don't think the possibilities of internet-like-things was ever in much doubt.
On the other hand, how long did it take Microsoft to figure that out - remember the Windows 95 TCP/IP stack?
edit: note, Windows 95 originally didn't have a TCP/IP stack! The point is, plenty of smart people missed this boat for years, and I don't think it was at all obvious in 1985 that getting on a network would be the driving use case for widespread computer adoption by "non-techie" people.
> On the other hand, how long did it take Microsoft to figure that out - remember the Windows 95 TCP/IP stack?
Having a good TCP/IP stack core isn't about figuring out that plugging into a national computer network is one of the key values of a computer, its about knowing which national network will be the key one (and, more specifically, which technology stack that one will be built on.)
The web -- the bit that made the Internet win that battle as the consumer-facing network that would matter -- was fairly new when Windows 95 was released and hadn't even been invented when work on Windows 95 began. At that time, dialup, largely-text mode offerings that didn't rely on a TCP/IP stack not only dominated local BBS's (some of which were part of national interBBS networks), but also represented some of the biggest (inter)national consumer-facing services to which computer users were likely to connect (like CompuServe, which had already secured leadership in that space when Jobs gave his 1985 interview.)
> The point is, plenty of smart people missed this boat for years, and I don't think it was at all obvious in 1985 that getting on a network would be the driving use case for widespread computer adoption by "non-techie" people.
It was widely accepted. Its true that in 1985 it wasn't at all obvious that the Internet or any specifically TCP/IP-based network would be the specific network, the recognition that connecting to a large-scale network was a compelling feature and likely to become the most compelling feature was widespread in 1985.
Well, right now Bitcoin allows you to pay anyone online without a centralized currency issuing authority.
This technology exists, but the people who are saying that Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general will change people's lives are way ahead of the curve. People will look at quotes from 2012 and say "Bitcoin came out in 2009 so people were already aware of cryptocurrency for years"
But more than 99% of the population right now are completely missing the boat on cryptocurrency. I think in five years it's going to be bigger than most people imagine.
> In fact what would become America Online was just starting out as a BBS.
And CompuServe's nation-wide, consumer-oriented offering (started out as a way to get some revenue for unused capacity on their business-oriented offering) had been available for several years.
fwiw, people have been saying that about electric cars for literally decades. perhaps this time really is different. if tesla ever makes a care normal people can afford it might happen.
the battery tech is still a ways off though. right now they are only really good for commuting, and lots of people still like to travel, or at least have the option to.
>Is it really that prescient? By 1985 there were lots of BBSes you could dial into and connect with people from across the nation.
Yeah, it's really that prescient.
The fact that BBS existed and there was some networking in colleges is irrelevant. Most people didn't even think a PC would be important for everybody, much less internet. It was seen as a totally geek / big business thing.
Read how the media pundits and even large corporations talked and wrote about the web in 1992-3 for example (as a fad, novelty, for nerds only, etc). Heck, even Microsoft took years to get it, and got behind Netscape.
Not really. By '85, the idea that an all-encompassing global computer network was coming was pretty well established. SMTP and DNS were up and (as tdicola noted) there were already a fair number of people on a recognisable modern Internet. The ITU was already well into a very serious and high-profile push for its own alternative to TCP/IP. Sun Microsystems had already launched, and afaik had already made "the network is the computer" its slogan. CompuServe CIS was running two-page ads http://www.amazon.com/CompuServe-Computer-Information-Servic... ; Minitel was several years old. Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson had been celebrated or mocked figures in computing circles for many years. Flipping Neuromancer had come out the previous year.
(Speaking of Ted Nelson and ubiquitous microcomputers, the desirability of microcomputers in homes and schools was already received wisdom; the BBC had been evangelising it since 1981. I have colour-printed computer-programming books released by a major children's publisher (Usborne) around 1983-5 sitting behind my monitor here.)
So Jobs' statement wasn't remarkably prescient. Certainly, a lot of other people weren't as clearly aware of what was coming in 1985; but for someone whose job was to be the leader and chief visionary of a forward-looking computer company, "respectably well-informed" would be closer to it.
I recall it being fairly obvious to everyone who was familiar with them that things were going that direction. It was prevalent enough that Neuromancer pretty much nailed it, a year before this interview, despite Gibson not having ever touched a computer.
Shockwave Rider covered it in 1975, and described a network worm.
> Most people didn't even think a PC would be important for everybody
Literally every single teacher I had in elementary school (which overlapped the time of this interview) raised this -- that learning to use and deeply understand computers would be broadly important for everyone was, if anything more prevalent in the 1980s than today (while its assumed today that everyone will use computers, its controversial that anyone but the tech high priesthood will need to learn to use them specifically.)
> much less internet.
The internet specifically, maybe not; people were widely recognizing the value to the public of consumer-focussed online information services like CompuServe, but "the internet" -- while it existed -- hadn't yet connected with the consumer-focussed world.
His statement is in no way similar to some random guy making a prediction that electric cars will be huge in the future. Unless that random guy happens to be named Elon Musk: working hard on actually making it happen.
As I recollect the times, computers were rare enough at the time that we passed as a truly geeky family. And in spite of being fairly early adopters of IT as consumers, I can't recollect internet in our household before the early 1990s.
The 1980s was a period where most businesses were beginning to equip themselves with computers. The process took roughly two decades and closed the century with the dotcom bubble. Networking was on the radar all along, yes, but recall that this primarily was for private networks or intranets. Internet as we think of it today was on nobody's radar until into the 1990s.
The movie War Games came out in 1983, and Neuromancer the book in 1984.
I can't imagine a single tech-minded person in 1985 not dreaming of a connected world, and the myriad dangers it could bring. It's the speed with which it has spread and become mainstream that is astonishing.
