That Was the Future

For anyone living in the later years of the 20th century, it felt like the future was arriving unusually fast. As computers, once huge behemoths that filled rooms, began to shrink to desktop size, they quickly spread into every arena of society, spreading out from university labs and industry giants to ordinary offices, schools and into the home. Meanwhile astonishing advances in robotics, genetics, materials, transport and entertainment all offered glimpses of a brave new world. Just trying to keep up with this revolution was dizzying, never mind making sense of it. What did it all mean? What did the future hold - for our work, our leisure, our health, our food, our relationships? How would technology change us as people? Would it be the kind of future we'd want? Nobody could say for sure, but there were plenty of people willing to speculate. And now that their future is our present, it's fascinating to look back and judge for ourselves how right - or how wrong - they were.