The way we do what we do today was invented…it was first in the mind of a person, who said “this is how people will use the technology that is available to us.” In this raw-footage, “lost” interview from 1990–again *1990*, it’s clear Steve Jobs had the trajectory of our daily digital life in the 2010’s in his mind.
Some of the hot-points (full video at the bottom):
13:21 – What if computer networks offered education? He talks about DARPAnet, and comes powerful-close to saying that there is this thing called “The INTERNET,” that will deliver educational content for everyone.
21:24 – Why is (computer) networking important?… Why is it the future? Answer: in the 90s, we’re going to revolutionize human to human communications with these desktop computers, in the same way that the spreadsheet revolutionized financial modeling, and Desktop Publishing revolutionized publishing.
22:36 – The biggest effect of the personal computer revolution has been to allow millions and millions of people to experience computers themselves, decades before they every would have in the old (trains vs. automobiles) paradigm, and to allow them to participate in the making of choices of controlling their own destinies using these tools. But, it has created problems…and the largest problems are that, now that we have all these very powerful tools, we’re still islands, and we’re still not really connecting the people using these powerful tools together. And that is really the challenge of the next several years…is how to connect these things back together, so that we can build a fabric of these things together, rather than individual “points of light,” if you will, and get the benefit of both the passenger train and the automobile.”
27:26 – “I have seen ‘interpersonal computing’ happening at our own company (NeXT). We decided to put a NeXT machine on every employee’s desktop about 18 months ago, and connect them with the very high-speed networking that’s built-in…and I have seen the revolution here, with my own eyes.”
31:12 – “We still want to be able to disconnect that network spigot, take it off, and take our ‘stand-alone’ computer somewhere, let’s say home. Now, what’s going to happen rapidly, with radio links, and fiber optics to the home, (is) you’re going to be able to hook your network at home.” He goes on to say that you are always going to want to connect, even in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.
31:10 – The interviewer talks about the “Orwellian aspects of always being hooked into the network” Steve comments: “Right…that’s right…I actually think..it’s an interesting paradox that it is the network that is going to define the home computer market, not keeping our recipes on this thing, or something,.. being a part of that network, and not being able to stay away from it while you’re at home, will drive people to get computers in EVERY house, just like we have a telephone in every house.”
The interviewer then challenges Steve to say “But computers won’t be ‘just’ computers, they’ll be radios and stereos and TVs…” Steve jumps in to say: “No, I think they’ll be JUST computers, just like your phone isn’t your television set…just like your toaster isn’t your radio…They will have many of the capabilities of these other devices.”
36:18 – (talking about the development of Macintosh) “Looking back, five years later, just seems like a trivial observation but, at the time, it was cataclysmic in its consequences. And the battles that were fought to push this point of view out the door were very large.”
37:00 – My entire life has been spent in one industry (this one), and I have seen a lot of people make a lot of things, I’ve seen a lot of people fail at a lot of things, and my point of view on this, or my observation…is that the “DOERS” are the major thinkers.”
37:22 – “The people who really create and change this industry, are both they Thinkers (and) Doer in one person. And if we go back and examine, did Leonardo (DiVinci) have a guy off to the side who was thinking five years out in the future…of course not. Leonardo was the artist, but he also mixed his own paints, he also was a fairly-good chemist and knew about pigments…knew about human anatomy, and combining all those skills together–the art AND the science–the thinking AND the doing, was what resulted in the exceptional result.”
38:37 – QUESTION: What’s it going to take to make computers accessible to the REST of the public…I don’t know what the statistics are…maybe 20 million people on computers today. What’s it going to take to get it to 100 million?
48:50: Steve talks about marketing to an audience that doesn’t yet know what they want.
“No market research could have led to the development of Macintosh..or the personal computer in the first place.”
50:00: QUESTION: “How has the personal computer changed society…the way we do our daily business?”
Here’s the Video:
