Saw this on the news this morning as I was leaving...

BBC Archive releases Tomorrow's World collection

---

The BBC Archive is today releasing a new collection which looks back at pioneering technology programme, Tomorrow's World, ahead of BBC Four's new technology season, Electric Revolution.

Part of the BBC's plans to open up its extensive archives, this collection gives us a chance to see how audiences of the past were told the future may look, and lets us rediscover programmes, many of which haven't been seen for years.

First broadcast in 1965, just two years after Harold Wilson's famous "white heat" of technological change speech, Tomorrow's World's mix of quirky film reports and live demonstrations examined new inventions over nearly four decades of unprecedented scientific and technological progress.

In its earlier years, Tomorrow's World was more likely to report on advances in industry or farming. By the Eighties, computing was a major interest for audiences, and the programme examined many new consumer technologies.

The Archive collection comes ahead of the start of BBC Four's Electric Revolution, a season of programmes giving viewers a unique insight into how developments in technology have shaped our lives over the past 50 years and charting the rise of today's globally-linked, instantly-gratified digital culture.

Highlights from the collection include a 1979 report on one of the first mobile phones, a 1969 demonstration of the Moog synthesiser, and another 1969 report about schoolboys who are lucky to have an early computer, but have to check its oil levels and thermostat whenever it breaks down.

Very cool!

Take a look at the archive here: Linky


-- Edited by ddvmor on Monday 14th of September 2009 10:46:33 AM