Natasha  🇪🇺

A conceptual portable computer and communications system designed by Honeywell for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968.

It has a lightpen (vs uninvented mouse) and a camera.

Sadly it didn't make it into the final cut of the movie!

Credit: Stanley Kubrick Archives. More here:
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/the-making-of-2001-a-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick

#RetroTech

Mar 27 at 12:52amWeb
Show threadYOGA~ZEN 🙏2d ago
@Natasha_Jay
This, in a way, demonstrates that the future is unimaginably unreal...
Show threadMiriam's on Medical Leave2d ago
@Natasha_Jay the lightpen: an elegant peripheral for a more civilized age.
Show threadThe Witch of Crow Briar2d ago
@miriamrobern @Natasha_Jay She should be flying the shuttle but she’s too busy doomscrolling
Show threadCorey Snipes 🌱2d ago
@crowbriarhexe real talk
Show threadRevK 19h ago
@miriamrobern @Natasha_Jay And I even used on a BBC micro.
Show threadengineer271d ago
@Natasha_Jay rotary dial LOL
Show threadDr Andrew A. Adams #FBPE 🔶19h ago
@engineer27 @Natasha_Jay
Look again. touchbuttons in a circle.
Show threadMartin Vermeer FCD18h ago
@a_cubed @engineer27 @Natasha_Jay Trying very hard to make the telephony subsystem look familiar.
Show threadMarcella Francesca 1d ago

@Natasha_Jay

First working mouse. 1968. Probably too ugly to add to the design.

Show threadNatasha  🇪🇺23h ago
@bitchboss
I posted that before! Thanks for reminding me.
Show threadWolfgang Stief5h ago
@bitchboss @Natasha_Jay Telefunken Rollkugelsteuerung (something like “rolling ball control”) was introduced in 1968 as an optional device for their TR86 and TR440 computers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_mouse (scroll down to “First rolling-ball mouse”).
Computer mouse - Wikipedia

Show threadAlfons Klarname 2h ago
@stiefkind @bitchboss @Natasha_Jay Honeywell knew that hair constantly accumulates in a trackball mouse. That’s why they deliberately opted for the lightpen. 🙂
Show threadColes Street Pothole20h ago

@Natasha_Jay
2001 remains one of my all-time favorite movies. 😎

Oh, and I totally just stole this image for another usage but gave you credit so is it really stealing? 🤔

Show threadDavid Penfold 20h ago
@ColesStreetPothole @Natasha_Jay
So long as it's not straight up stealing like dgar does, I think it's ok.
Show threadNatasha  🇪🇺20h ago

@davep
@ColesStreetPothole
This has definitely been around online since 2014 so it's pretty fair game I'd say? But I'll update my OP.

eg in 2015 https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/the-making-of-2001-a-space-odyssey-stanley-kubrick

The strangest images from the Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey | British GQ

Take a look behind-the-scenes of the greatest film of all time

British GQ
Show threadColes Street Pothole20h ago
@Natasha_Jay @davep 😎 I may take some of those for future use.
Show threadTony Hoyle20h ago
@Natasha_Jay They imagined a flat screen but it still has the CRT curve, just nothing behind it..
Show threadWesDym15h ago
@tony Not flat, thin. Thin CRT was available by a decade earlier, but didn't catch on. It was a matter of bad timing more than anything else. Thin CRT came around the same time colour TV did, and the enormous investment in that pushed thin CRT aside. No one really cared. Neither was flat. Thin CRT just had offset guns with reflectors.
Show threadgwildor19h ago

@Natasha_Jay

I love this.

Show threadKhleedril19h ago
@Natasha_Jay It was too far-fetched to believe that cathode ray tubes would ever get that slim, or that you could drive such a thing from batteries.
Show threadLaberpferd18h ago

@khleedril
You might be interested to know that a true flat CRT was already built in 1957
https://www.earlytelevision.org/fairchild_crt.html
https://everything.explained.today/Aiken_tube/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiken_tube

@Natasha_Jay

Fairchild Flat Screen CRT

early television

Show threadwhoosh19h ago

@Natasha_Jay ...

still a bit larger than Maxwell Smart's shoephone

Show threadMartin Vermeer FCD18h ago
@Natasha_Jay That thing on her head looks distinctly unpractical.
Show threadM-A.Delsuc17h ago
@Natasha_Jay
In the same movie, the guys in the space ship are reading the news on kind of tablets or iPads
Show threadWesDym15h ago
@ma_delsuc Yep. Samsung took stills from the film to court to thwart Apple's attempt to patent.. ::checks notes:: the RECTANGLE.
Show threadԎєηυкι, 手抜き🚀🐧♏ 🔭 ⚫⚪15h ago
@Natasha_Jay
the camera is quite big for that time. And not smaller integrated for interviews only. But for face to face interviews the tele optic would become unhandy.
Show threadTrip6h ago
@Natasha_Jay What is the apparatus behind the keyboard? That's the only bit I can't figure out.
Show threadArnim Sommer 🇪🇺3h ago
@Natasha_Jay
How do you get a CRT that flat?
Show threadBillie40m ago

@Natasha_Jay

Even more impressive is that the #metropolis movie from 1927 features video telephony.