In the early 1970’s I was a junior high school student. This was a time in history and in a school district where there was a new way of educating. In seventh and eighth grade I had seven class periods and only six classes met each day. The classes were on a rotating schedule throughout the week. In ninth grade there were eight class periods and six classes met each day. The weeks were also rotating over a eight week period. Now it is all starting to sound like my current work schedule as an adult. In all three years, built into the schedule was an open block of time. The time block was for lunch and open for study hall, game rooms and movie rooms. And for me, I excelled in the movie room.
They showed a variety of school movies of the era. But the movie that brought me back day after day to the movie room was, The Home Of The Future: Year 1999 A.D. The look into the future fascinated me. The future was less than 30 years away and the main characters, the Shore’s, were three to five years older than what I would be in the year 1999. The memories of that movie have stayed with all these years. The strongest memory of the movie would be we would scan our hand and a computer would tell us our diet and exercise for the day. I have searched the internet over the years looking for this movie. In a recent conversation, with a young college co-worker, I made one more internet search. With 1999 in the search engine I had endless results for movies made in 1999. Then I added the phrase “1970’s movie about 1999” and it was my lucky day! I found it! It was on YouTube! By looking at the comments I think the movie was uploaded in the last year.
I tapped the white arrow on the red square and the movie started. I was a little confused because I didn’t remember the beginning of the movie very well. As the movie continued to play it all started coming back to me. I was remembering the past with an old junior high school friend. The movie was etched with its countless showings. A long scratch line danced back and forth across the screen and also a few splicing skips. All the sudden the computers of the future appeared and I knew it was my old friend telling and showing me how the year 1999 would look and I kept a keen eye on the movie absorbing all the small details. I invite you to watch the movie for yourself. Yes it is well aged but it was a fore telling of the future by some of the best minds of the day. The movie was produced by Philco-Ford in 1967. They were the Microsoft, Google and Amazon of their day.
Later in the movie was my memory of the body scan for diet and exercise. My memory wasn’t remembering the scene perfectly, but it was close and still is a look into tomorrow’s health future. The diet and exercise scene told how we would lay down on a bed and the data collection points on the bed would take all of our vitals and also do a body scan looking for hot spots in our bodies. The data collected would be entered into your medical history on the home computer and forward to your physician to keep them up to date on your health. Then the computer would give you a workout and make up your daily diet to keep you healthy and fit.
As I rewatched the movie it was interesting how many things have come to be. Mr Shore calls a friend on a video chat and schedules a golf outing. They were hoping to play at Pebble Beach but after checking his weather computer they made a change and moved the outing to Mexico. Skype, FaceTime. Sound familiar? How about the Weather Channel on your computer?
It showed Mrs Shore doing some shopping on the computer in the world of e-commerce and Amazon. Sound familiar? Of course the modern family in 1999 was still living in the 1950’s. Mr Shore would have to figure out how to pay for Mrs Shores purchases. Of course Mr Shore would pay for those items via the internet banking system.
Letters of the future wouldn’t be written on paper. They would be written on a glass plate connected to the computer. The computer would send the messages to the recipient so they could read the message on their computer. E-mail and texting sound familiar?
In the last scene Mr Shore wants to show his party guests a video of a singer they had seen and heard. He pulled up the video on his computer and showed it to his friends on the big screen. Starting to sound like YouTube being shown on the home entertainment center?
Those a few snapshots of the future and there were many more scenes of the future. I know 2017’s reality is a far cry from the conceptual vision in 1967, but it is amazing how right the Philco-Ford people were in 1967. Who dreamed the computer would fit into your hand as a tablet or smartphone. The predictions of the year 1999 were awesome and only a short thirty-two years into the future.
The last words uttered in the movie are, “What’s next?” So what is next? Any ideas? Smart Alecks need not comment, there are plenty of other blogs and websites for those comments. But what does the future hold? What is the future of our homes, cars, work and leisure time. Drop me a comment on what “The Home Of The Future: Year 2049 A.D.” will look like. It’s only thirty-two short years away. I will be 90 years old and my grandchildren will be in their thirty’s. Maybe I will still be around to see the future with them in the year 2049 A.D.