1994 was an odd time from the perspective of almost 30 years later. It’s hard to even consider how much things have changed since then. For most people at least, there were no cell phones. There was no online network of computers, unless you count AOL which was in its infancy. Information was hard to come by. On the other hand, there was a lot to like. It’s hard to remember that part when you look at the following video.
Britain, are you ready?
This is a short segment produced by the BBC in 1994. Not that you needed me to tell you that it was produced in 1994. If the hair and the outfit didn’t give it away, the legions of white PCs with CRT monitors probably did. It’s a great document of a moment in time. It was not only a time you could get away with that hairstyle (yes I know I’m dwelling on it) but it was a time when we knew the future was coming but we didn’t know what that would mean.
The internet
In the 1990s, we all started to hear about “the internet.” It was this sort of weird thing where everyone would have access to everything for free. But we didn’t know how it would work. There was something about phone lines and special equipment. But at that time there were very few internet service providers and it was hard to get connected. I mean HARD. As in, Windows didn’t really even have internet support until 1998. Before that you had to install something called SOCKS on your computer. In a strange coincidence, Socks was the name of the President’s cat. I’m not sure the two facts are related.
I was on the internet in 1994 (surprised?) and I can describe it with one word: painful. There was no directory of where to go. It was incredibly slow, often taking a minute or more to bring up each web page. It was boring, unless you count the ephemeral thrill of knowing you could go to xerox.com on your own computer. There was, quite frankly, nothing to do. But there existing this feeling that if you just poked around enough, you’d end up in some secure server with the ability to start a thermonuclear war.
Back when Britain was worried
What really comes out in this article is how worried the BBC was that they’d lose the race to the internet. In the 1970s and 1980s, Europe was far ahead of the US in terms of getting online. Both Britain and France had videotext systems that provided very simple interactive features, but the US had absolutely nothing along that line. In 1991, the US Congress had passed a law designed to encourage the creation of internet infrastructure in the US. (This is the law that encouraged Vice President Al Gore to say he had “created the internet.) Most countries had no such law.
The internet itself was created in the US as part of a defense department project, but the way we use it today was created by a Brit, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, while he was at CERN in Switzerland. There was a lot of paranoia that this British invention, called the World Wide Web (capitals were very important) would be lost to Americans. So the BBC created videos like the one above to get citizens interested.
Yes, the 1990s. A time of crazy hair and crazy futurism. And something we can all think fondly about during this Fun Friday.
