Retro Picture Of The Day

Here's a clip from a 1967 episode of "The 21st Century," a CBS primetime news hour hosted by Walter Cronkite, in which we're shown the home of the future.

The show gave us a peek at how technology would change our lives -- from big-screen 3D television to robots to clean up your mess to a kitchen device that not only prepared your food but also molded plastic plates for each meal. This segment highlights the home office of the future, from a time when doing your job without leaving your house was as alien a concept as women having a job in the first place (all of Cronkite's work references are to men).

This all seems remarkably primitive, but the educated guesses by scientists and futurists of the time weren't far off from our eventual reality. I laughed when I saw the simple monochrome text on these screens, until I remembered that's pretty much what the Tandy 1000 that I bought in January, 1986, looked like....


There's more from Cronkite's show on the Smithsonian magazine site.

Labels: