The second half of an hour long interview that I actually saw on TV back in ’79. Durk Pearson got me started, taking antioxidant vitamins way back in the late 70’s, and I think it was this interview that got me interested in buying my first computer in 1980. Very interesting, in that a lot of the things they were talking about then, as in the future, have actually happened. Weird watching Tom Snyder smoke cigarettes on air, too. A definite BLAST for the PAST!
See video below.
http://youtu.be/8U-Oxhb8SK4
http://youtu.be/BJ7lHBnlKQM
http://youtu.be/eVd_y5VAxEs
Notes from the video poster:
In honor of Tom Snyder and for the sake of historical interest.
An interesting recording from early 1979 during which Tom Snyder discusses life extension techniques with Durk Pearson and Jerry Pournelle. This information could save your life! Or maybe not.
I was only able to record the second half of the show at the time. The benefits of Choline and Lecithin are discussed, as well as the need for Thymosin to battle immune deficiencies. Durk describes how he fights baldness. The benefits of B12 are described. Life extension is described as a battle against evolution.
Tom is fascinated by Durk’s and Jerry’s prognostications about the(ir) future of publishing, computers and technology in general. Jerry describes his amazing Cromemco Z80-based computerized “glass screen” that allows him to edit his novels with ease, recording them on “magnetic records” before printing the manuscripts on paper using an “automatic typewriter” and mailing them to the publisher. Durk describes the theory behind flat panel TVs. Speculation regarding the connection of wavelength to holographic television ensues which leaves Tom flabbergasted. Jerry predicts the demise of old-fashioned newsprint. Jerry then tells the story of how much computer technology had shrunk since the old days of the Iliac. Somehow the discussion then turns to asteroid mining. Go figure.
The final segment of that night’s show includes Durk’s description of how computers are going to change everyone’s lives, how much better computerized cars are and how everyone will have interactive general purpose computers in just ten years. Durk and Jerry then boldly makes the assertion that within twenty to thirty years mankind will be able to control computers merely by thought, and any question the answer of which is known or calculable will be instantly answered, revolutionizing education. Durk points out that a computer has already passed the Turing Simulation Test as of 1979. Tom worries about computers running our lives, but is reassured by Durk and Jerry otherwise.
Mind you, this was at a time when personal computers were still very much a hobbyist curiosity, and processors like the Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80 were “high tech”.