When the IRS began using computers in the early 60s, there was national outrage: how could a machine be trusted to look after our finances? This 10-minute video, fresh from the archives, was an attempt to convince people that everything would be OK.
It’s probably for the best that tablets didn’t really enter the mainstream until Apple launched the iPad, at least if the Nokia M510 Web Tablet was anything to go by.
Gmail’s officially entering its tender tween years today
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This is a school science video trailer from the 90s, produced by Dorling Kindersley. It makes you wonder: how the hell did people learn anything from this stuff?
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Microsoft has dusted off the source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows—some of the most popular and widely used software of the 80s—making it freely available to download from the the Computer History Museum.
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Smart rings may seem like something from an impossible (or at least highly unlikely
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The next time your kid complains about not having the latest and greatest toys, just point to them towards this photo of what children in the late 1800s had to play with. On one hand they’ll certainly start appreciating what they’ve got, but on the other they probably won’t sleep for a week because this thing will haunt their dreams.
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Alexander Graham Bell may have invented the telephone in 1875, but the first phone installation didn’t come about for another three years. And that’s what makes these photos from 1887 so incredible; this tangled mass of telephone wires had already wound itself around New York City’s streets just seven years after that first installation.
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I think ice skating at Rockefeller during the holidays looks more professional than this. But hey it was Lake Placid, NY, USA in 1932 and it was only the third Winter Olympics and what they were doing was probably groundbreaking stuff. There were only 4 sports! 14 events! 17 countries! 252 athletes! It’s like going up to the mountains with your friends.
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Performing a midair fuel transfer between aircraft is among the most technically challenging maneuvers in aviation, especially when flying a prop-driven, WWII-era C-97 Stratotanker. That’s why neophyte pilots spent hours at the controls of this life-size simulator before they ever set foot in the real thing.
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