♪ as soon as we have intelligent machines creeping into our daily lives, it's going to be a new world out there. >> the popularity of these video games is nothing short of a social phenomenon. >> personal computers, walk-around stereos, automatic cameras, mobile telephones. >> a major moment in the history of flight. >> the experts tell us all of this is just the tip of the iceberg of what's to come. >> there's literally a hyperculture that is developing, it's almost a cult. >> we're no longer on the verge of the personal computer revolution. we're right in the midst of it, thank you. ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ the average family home. cory practices her violin. christian plays with his cars, and mike and carol worry over the bills. >> we went into the 1980s in pretty much the same technology that's been in place for a couple of decades.

typewriter. calculators, tv, oven. a car. you listen to music on a big old stereo system with a turntable. maybe you had a digital watch, and that was the only thing that was going to be digital that you actually owned. >> hello? i'm not here now, but my faithful machine is. >> there was a handful of technology at that time. one was the telephone answering machine. you'd be driving home and you'd say, i can't wait to check my messages. you know, it had become part of the day. honey, i'm checking my messages. >> from the noisy streets of new york to the laid-back tranquility of california, americans are tuning out and tuning in. >> when i think of technology in the 1980s, i think of the walkman. the walkman was huge. >> it's the latest fad. tiny stereo cassette players with featherweight headphones. >> it's like carrying your stereo with you, you know, on your head.

>> the walkman took listening to music from a fixed location in your home to mobile. >> you are witnessing the ultimate miniaturization of the cassette player. never has so much genius been coaxed into so little space. >> in all the great bursts of innovation, there is always some kind of scientific breakthrough that has to happen first. and none of this stuff could have happened in the 1980s without the transistor being invented in the late 1940s. and japan and sony in particular really understood this technology could make things smaller, more affordable, more versatile. sony was the brand name that really mattered in the 1980s in technology. >> i'll take the sony! >> the original sony walkman was so solid, it was a pleasure to hold. it had density, it had heft. the cassette, pop it in, close it. a very satisfying sound. not just a click, click. it was a kathunk! it was a gorgeous, gorgeous

machine. it provided you with the soundtrack to your life. >> transformers and cabbage patch dolls may be the two top toy sellers this year, but for adults there's only one hot item, the vcr. >> christmas shoppers have again made the video cassette recorder one of the year's hottest get gifts for grown-ups. but the vcr is a lot more than a popular christmas gift. it's an invention some say is changing the whole idea of television. >> there are so many inventions where you can track the success back to the smashing of a limitation, and the vcr smashed the limitation of time. >> most people use vcrs for what they call time shifting. let's say this sunday is your parents' 50th wedding anniversary, but you can't miss the steelers. what you do is set the timer on your recorder, pop in a tape, and watch the steelers when you get home. >> it just changed the paradigm of television. >> the makers of tv programs and movies shown on television claim

their films lose their rerun value when they're recorded on home videotape recorders and then played later. the movie studios said this violated copyright laws and sued the home recorder manufacturers for allegedly instigating widespread in the home lawbreaking. >> you cannot have high-class entertainment if 50 million taping machines are out there in an unauthorized fashion with no compensation to owners, taking from them what rightfully belongs to them. >> the supreme court today answered a multi-billion dollar business question affecting the wallets of millions of americans and one of the nation's fastest growing forms of recreation. home videotaping. the court ruled 5-4 that the use of machines to tape programs is legal and violates no copyright law. >> not only did the movie industry lose that one but they were totally wrong. the vcr turned us into a nation of movie nuts. >> it may be the fastest-growing business in america. the sale of video cassette tapes that people buy, or more often

rent, to play at home on the or sell tapes of all kinds. >> you go to a video store and pick something out that you missed. in the old days, if you missed a movie, you'd miss the movie. >> and the market's not restricted to blockbuster films. jane fonda through her workout tapes has shown one can make money with a product geared specifically to the home video market. >> the success of cam corders marks the second phase of the video revolution. not just taking movies home but making them at home. and anywhere else you happen to go. >> i was the kid who had a camcorder. it was the size of kentucky, and it had to be, because it played vhs cassettes. >> the setup can be used by just about anybody. its advantage over film is about to revolutionize the industry. >> there's no developing. you could rewind and record over it if you didn't like the take. that is an enormous shift. >> americans buy billions of dollars of electronic equipment. just when you think you've

bought the latest in audio and video, there's a new generation of gear which has clearer pictures and better sound. >> this camera, using a simple little tape like that, just possibly the wave of the future. ♪

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like them or not, video games are the youth phenomenon of our day. quarter by quarter, $6 billion got fed into video game slots last year.

that's double what americans spent to go to the movies. >> people flock to them because the arcade game could afford expensive hardware at the time. and the hardware had enough power to do things we'd never seen before. >> there was essentially an arcade in every mall, in every street corner. the lunch money was not safe if there was an arcade around. >> arcade games at the time were the first machine that we could really interact with. we could cause a world to do something. so we'd grab a joystick and move a character around or fire something at a spaceship. we've never had experience like that before. >> the popularity of these video games is nothing short of a social phenomenon. pac man is seemingly everywhere. retailers can't keep the home version stocked. one dealer describes the demand. >> phenomenal. telephone's ringing every five minutes. it's pac man mania.

>> my big memory of the '80s was my best friend got this $300 console that connected to your tv. you just play this thing forever, and it was the first time anyone had ever seen anything but tv on a tv. and i thought, wow, this is technology. >> the imaginary rockets are controlled by the same chips the u.s. army used in their defense programs. but the significance of the chip does not only lie in gadgets. her whole future will be changed by the silicon chip business. >> it was discovered that you could actually etch a whole lot of transistors onto a piece of of silicon, which was basically a cheap substance that could be mass-manufactured. >> these chips can control the flow of electrical current that in effect enables them to store and remember zillions of bits of information on a surface just a little bit thicker than an eggshell and smaller than a fingernail. >> this silicon chip supplies the brainpower for 1,001

electronic gadgets from wristwatches to microwave ovens. >> the mushrooming industry gives birth to a new high-tech cult and a place called silicon valley. >> the magic part of silicon valley is that there was this boiling pot of people who were involved in technology, involved in science. >> silicon valley was hp, sri, xerox park, and stanford university. that was a hell of a powerful combination. >> there was these two cultures, engineers with phds and hobbyists. >> it was a time when there was a lot of social ferment in and around the bay area. there was a lot of counterculture people. so you had cheap semiconductors. you had people that would look at things differently than what the conventional person was, and that's what the technology needed then. >> one of the things that was really hard about making a computer was now on a chip. so all of a sudden, people who had a thirst for this stuff could go out and buy a home brew

computer. you could make them yourself. >> there was a lot of this kind of revolutionary thing with a lot of the technical people who were into the changes in technology and how we were a part of it. even though at our companies we were generally the fringe element. we had the jeans and we're not the managers and the leaders. but boy, just a clever design on its own had value. >> you had these guys like steve jobs and steve wozniak and bill gates and paul allen messing around on the edges of what would become the personal computer industry. but no one in corporate america and no one in most of the homes of america thought that the personal computer was anything that would ever have, would ever even happen, let alone have any relevance to them. >> for all of us, the computer revolution was really exciting. it was like, wow, this is wide open. >> it was a group of people who want to make a change in the world. and eventually, the two forces in silicon valley, the hobbyists and the button-down business guys, ended up coming together when the chipmakers realized the things that the hobbyists were doing could lead to this whole new kind of product called a

personal computer. >> it was at a home-grown computer club where steve wozniak and steve jobs first displayed the computer they'd been working on. and it caused a sensation. >> we had absolutely no idea what people were going to do to these things when we started out. as a matter of fact, the two people who it was designed for was woz and myself, because we couldn't afford to buy a computer kit on the market. we got it working and showed it to some of our friends. and of course immediately everybody wanted one. >> woz was the technical genius and jobs was the marketing genius. and you needed both of those kinds of mindsets to actually make this new technology work and create this company out of thin air called apple. >> since the apple computer company was founded five years ago, its sales have skyrocketed from $100,000 to more than $100 million. with the most popular typewriter-sized computer on the market today. steven jobs is now 26 years old and he sees his computer's future as the future of mankind. >> how many calculators do you own? >> two, maybe. >> right.

you use the automatic bank telling machines? >> sure. >> so life is already seducing you into learning this stuff. it's not going to happen at once and it's certainly not a 1984-ish vision at all. it's just going to be very gradual and very human and will seduce you into learning how to use it. >> random access memory is internal memory built inside of this computer. >> these new computers were rough, big, ugly, difficult to use inventions when they first came out. >> it would crash and you would have to figure out what to do. it would not always create the right results. so it really did take a mindset of someone willing to cut it some slack. >> small steps, don't take big steps. >> okay. >> everybody kind of agreed this could be the next great thing after the printing press if we do it right. it's not just having a machine. the world needed to be made better. those are the things that actually can lift a society into a new way of thinking. >> industry experts say we're no longer on the verge of the personal computer revolution.

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why are all these business owners so excited? we're going to comcast. it's ahead of the game, ahead of the curve. comcast business is for me. it's switch and save days at comcast business. right now, get fast, reliable internet for $49.95 a month and save $600 a year. just one more way we take your business beyond. but hurry, switch and save days ends april 7th. i can't wait to go home and tell everyone about it. i just wanna get it right now. guess what i'm gonna do. (laughing) call today. comcast business. beyond fast. in the early part of the '80s, the general image of the computer was always this giant machine with little things all over it.

the mindset was the computer as the brain. and it was a threatening concept. >> the 1980s is a period of time when the big, impersonal, giant machine that lives in a huge, air-conditioned room someplace suddenly becomes something that sits on your desk. >> something is happening out there, something that's expanding your world. small computers are happening. >> as soon as we have intelligent machines creeping into our daily lives, into our factories, into our hospitals, into our businesses, then it's going to be a new world out there. >> computer stores have become the neighborhood soda shops of the binary generation. the disciples, young and old, of smart machines. >> companies that were starting to build personal computers, companies like atari, tandy, commodore, apple began to see them as a home market. and it was starting to seep into the public consciousness. >> personal computers have become the business of at least 25 manufacturers, with three

companies, radio shack, apple, and commodore, grabbing three-quarters of the market. this personal computer costs about $1,400 and fits nicely on a desk corner. duplicating its performance five years ago would have cost $75,000 and involve the unit the size of a large refrigerator. >> when the average american thought computer, they thought ibm. it made these mainframe computers that ran pretty much everything. >> ibm was one of the most powerful corporations in america. and in technology, it was the most powerful company that had ever existed in technology. >> because of this activity in personal computers, it started to make ibm look like it was somewhere behind the 8-ball. >> they look at the apple ii and say, huh, we could build one of those. we built computers that put men on the moon. we'll get that business, squash these guys, no problem. >> ibm, international business machines, has entered the small computer market for the first time. >> the idea of the small computer has become so big that

the giant of computer companies, ibm, is busy marketing its new small computer. >> it will, they say, give credibility to home computers. they'll no longer be just another new gadget. >> ibm has set an objective to build the office of the future. >> before ibm came in, companies would not think about buying personal computers, but suddenly, when ibm's selling one, now it becomes a safer decision. >> ibm's personal computer is designed for office, school or home use, aimed at exactly the same market as its competitors. >> when ibm started developing the ibm pc, it needed an operating system. and this young guy named bill gates had started this tiny little company called microsoft. >> bill gates was that unusual combination of a tech guy who was as good as the best tech guys, but he also had a business sense, and he had a business vision. >> at the time, everyone was making it up as they went along. there was nothing that came before it. there was no personal computer

industry. so when gates said to ibm, how about this, we'll write you an operating system for your pc, and we'll get a cut of every machine you sell. and in addition, he made sure that it was not an exclusive license. that he was going to be able to sell this software to ibm, but he was also going to be able to sell the same software to other people. because gates intuited that there were going to be people that would build knockoffs of ibm and the pc clones. >> it was a genius move by bill gates, who was still in his early 20s when he makes this decision. and you've got these guys at ibm in blue shirts and dark ties looking at this company microsoft and saying, who cares? software, who cares about software? man, we build these big machines. >> ibm did not realize it was essentially handing all this power to this little nerd. >> if you had stayed at harvard a few more years, would this computer revolution have passed you by? >> perhaps. things move very quickly in the industry, and it was really the urgency to get out there and be

the first one to put a basic on the microcomputer that caused me to drop out. >> if you don't have one, you will be amazed what these little gadgets can do. >> the idea was that ordinary people might have a use for computers. now, it took a while to figure out what those uses might be. >> the main thing was spreadsheets and word processing. the computer was the best typewriter you could ever have. it gave you a new way to write. you could change things around. and check your spelling. it would always look perfect. >> my dad had the large ledger sheets, done them all by hand, and i remember taking a computer to show him the spreadsheet. and suddenly, he understood the value of a personal computer. >> there was a drastic mindset change in the whole country about what a computer was. and happened over a very short period of time. >> gather around and we'll tell you a lit bit more about the system. >> here at the west coast computer fair, the speed of development in this industry is

so great that each fair virtually outdates the previous one. >> well, it is lower prices that have helped the tremendous boom in home computer sales, about one home in ten will have a computer by the end of this year. by 1990, the number could be two out of three. >> we knew that the personal computer was getting serious when the competition started. because when you have competition, innovation gets stimulated. >> compaq. >> atari home computer. >> kaypro gives you the complete computer. >> this is the one. >> higher resolution. great other expandability than ibm's pc. >> ibm's entry heated up an already volatile market. one industry innovator, osborne computer, was forced into bankruptcy court last month. and apple, the industry's number one in small computers, had to concede it was now number two, behind ibm. >> all of a sudden, you were in an old-fashioned competitive business in which you really had to be better than the other guy. >> there are 150 microcomputer companies and all of them want 10% of the market, and that just isn't going to happen.

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this is the newest kind of office in america. and this is the telephone which will ring in it. >> hi, buddy. is john around? >> the big thing was the phone in the car, which was like, we are now officially in the modern era. and the first thing you always said was, hey, i'm calling from

the car! >> when these things were first starting to pop up in the mid 1980s, the customers were people who had a business reason for having these things. or a super-rich dude who just wanted to show off. the big breakthrough idea was the idea of cellular systems. >> it's called cellular because your car phone is tied into different radio transmitters, each one called a cell. as you travel, the signal from your phone travels from cell to cell. >> this was something that had never been done before. >> if you don't have one now, you probably will have one in a decade, say the phone makers, as the price comes down into the range of other high-tech toys. >> there were people that understood even in the early days that being trapped in a car was not freedom. people are fundamentally, naturally, mobile. >> i like to say the technology will go from a phone in the car to a phone in the briefcase to finally a phone in your pocket. >> and this is it. this is a portable cellular phone. you'll be able to take this to

any american city and call virtually any place in the world, and its maker, motorola, says a smaller version than this will be on the market next year. >> your first cell phones look like soviet army field telephones. these huge lunch boxes you hold up to your head. >> this is just the birth of this industry. all inventions start out in a very rough state. whether it's computers or cell phones. it took a while to refine them and make them into something that all of us use. >> you look at the bottom of your screen, it says "please press return" or -- >> the computer has become a national mania, and we're told, miss the electronic boat and you're sunk. >> in the future, everything's probably going to be computerized. so you're going to have to know how to use computers. >> my son just took a computer class in school, and he's only 8 years old. i figure i'd just as soon be as smart as he is. >> for all you hear about friendly, they aren't really, except for playing pac man. >> a small snag in computer marketing is called

technophobia. fear of these bloodless little wizards. the manufacturers are trying to overcome it by making them what they call user-friendly. >> isn't that pretty? now what do i do? >> making computers easy enough to use for a beginner, it wasn't always true. people had never encountered this stuff. >> hold down shift and press -- >> so there was a great disconnect between the ambitions of the apples and microsofts and the realities of people trying to use these things for the first time. >> right now, if you buy a computer system and you want to solve one of your problems, we immediately throw a big problem right in the middle of you and your problem, which is learning how to use the computer. substantial problem to overcome. once you overcome that, it's a phenomenal tool. >> steve jobs thought that a computer should require no technical skill. he thought that it should be

capable of generating artistic endeavors and not just number-crunching business things. >> is there anything that you'd like to see? >> we'd love to have it in a book right now, you know, about this size, but that's technically impossible. >> steve's like, i want to make a friendly computer, a computer that comes from a different kind of place, that owes its inspiration to people who are thoughtful and creative and human and humane. >> morning, chris. this is an experimental office system of the xerox research center in palo alto, california. >> anything else? what about flowers? my anniversary. i forgot. >> xerox in the 1980s was one of the most exciting companies in america. xerox had this booming copier business. it wasn't a personal computer company, but they opened up this lab called the palo alto research center. >> xerox park was xerox's think tank. they were working on all these crazy, out-there ideas which included the mouse, overlapping

windows and fonts and graphics on a computer screen. just to see if they could do it. >> steve jobs hears about some of this work going on at this lab, and he wants a look. >> xerox park was an innovation place, apple was an innovation place. steve was very visual. and he could see right away the graphical user interface was different and more communicative than anything he'd seen before. he knew that it was effective, but was affecting him. >> jobs realizes, this is the future of computing. this is a whole different kind of computer to be built. famously, a computer for the rest of us. >> "1984." the ridley scott commercial for the macintosh. >> it depicted a very thinly disguised representation of ibm's scary 1984's leader on a big screen saying that this tiny little company, apple, is going

to destroy the reigning power. >> we shall prevail. >> on january 24th, apple computer will introduce macintosh. >> the personal computer war heated up today. apple computer officially unveiled its new macintosh. >> i'd like to let macintosh speak for itself. >> hello, i am macintosh. >> the introduction of the mac was an event. steve jobs really did think of the mac as a thing that would change the world. >> apple is betting $100 million and admittedly its future, to make inroads against ibm. >> apple felt like a rock band. had the same kind of spirit. they seemed to be going up against the man in ibm. >> it is aimed at a largely untapped market of managers, professionals, and students. while they make up about 75% of the white collar workforce, less than 5% now use computers, mostly because of their complexity.

macintosh is designed for simplicity. using a palm-sized unit called a mouse. >> it was the first time that a machine was personal, it was simple, it was friendly. >> it took the computer out of the exclusive domain of geeks and nerds and people who had memorized the commands and put it on the desk of everybody. untrained, nontechnical people. >> stores around the country put them on sale today, and analysts say it's a good bet that macintosh could soon be the biggest apple of the industry's eye. >> it's got its best years ahead of it, eventually i want to be able to carry my mac around with me, walk around with it in my pocket. >> pocket computer? >> yes. >> you really like that mac. would you trade it for an ibm? >> are you kidding? >> as material sciences progress, more and more circuitry keeps getting put on smaller and smaller chips, circuit boards. so the closer together elements on a chip are, the faster the motion of signals between them.

>> there was something called moore's law, named for gordon moore, one of the engineers who worked at intel. basically an observation computer engineers are getting to the point where they can essentially double the computing power of a computer chip every 18 months or so. >> and this is what really made the power of computers explode in the 1980s. because every 18 months, these things were getting twice as good. >> you could get the whole computer on a chip. it was less expensive to manufacture. so you had smaller, which led to faster, which led to cheaper. >> under any other field of consumer products, things get more expensive over time. milk, gasoline, houses, but not technology. >> one of the striking things about the development of especially hardware during the 1980s was the fact that it was getting so much more powerful, so rapidly, that there developed a strong tendency on the part of people who were about to buy a computer, should i buy the computer today? no, in fact, if i wait six months, for the same money i can

get twice the computer. >> the reason we are attracted to computers is it is a power tool that gives me power that i feel i should have had, but nature left me without. and i can now exploit more of my potential with a computer.

if all goes according to plan, "columbia," this nation's first space shuttle, will soar like a skylark next march. >> if the shuttle program works the way it's designed to, it will be a technological feat marveling that of the trip to the moon. a major moment in the history of flight. >> the space shuttle had new systems, new technology. the primary thing is the fly by wire system. you don't have pulleys and cables, it's all done by electronics. all the commands go through a computer. >> it was built as the world's first reusable spaceship, one that would commute to space carrying scientists and satellites. >> the most important thing was the digital revolution of faster, more powerful computers with complex software. >> computers are absolutely necessary to fly a spacecraft like the shuttle. it's the most sophisticated, most complex system that has been put into space yet.

>> first time i saw "columbia" and got close to it, my whole thought was, oh, my god, it's big. and this is going to go 17,500 miles per hour? >> more than half a million people crowded the beaches around cape kennedy this morning to witness firsthand the first space shuttle launch. >> t-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four -- we've gone for main engine start -- >> we added a giant fuel tank to it and two solid rocket boosters that are the largest pop bottle rockets on the planet. when you light that puppy, it's going somewhere. >> america's first space shuttle. and the shuttle has cleared the tower. >> "columbia," houston, you're going 40. >> i am in the mission control center, but it's only after the fact that you get into orbit that your mouth drops and you calm down and go, wow, that's

amazing. >> and the vehicle is performing like a champ, like all of us who have worked so long on it knew that she would. i think we've got something that's really going to mean something to the country and the world. >> the astronauts have about 14 more hours in space before they touch down tomorrow in the california mojave desert. >> we were in l.a. and heard the sonic boom. >> that was it, that was it! it's coming down. >> there it is. >> right on the glide slope, "columbia." >> putting that all together in a technology to make it fly and then landing is remarkable. nothing like it had ever been done. >> touchdown. >> there, they're down. >> i said, it worked. the damn thing worked. >> the day will come, according to nasa, that a launch will be so routine that the press and television won't even bother to cover it. >> 30 weeks later, after "columbia" had been returned to the kennedy space center, astronauts joe engle and dick

truly flew "columbia" into space again. >> space shuttle was like a large truck that could deploy satellites, and it had a robotic arm so that you can repair and upgrade spacecraft. >> and liftoff of the orbiter "challenger" and the sixth flight of the space shuttle. >> this was the birth of space travel, not just space missions. we're talking about setting a laboratory. almost like a university in space. it started feeling like anybody could be an astronaut. >> the countdown is under way tonight at cape canaveral toward sunday's scheduled launch of the shuttle "challenger," a liftoff that will carry america's first teacher into space. >> still doesn't seem real that i'm going to be able to go with these guys. i'm excited. >> the ice is cleared away, and "challenger" should be going away very soon. let's go down to the kennedy space center and take a look at "challenger" sitting on the pad as they continue the countdown. >> the "challenger" flight in january of '86 was the 25th flight of the space shuttle. but it was an especially notable

one because hundreds of thousands if not millions of school kids around the country were tuned into the launch. >> it was the first mission i wasn't in the mission control center. i was outside, standing next to the families. >> t-minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one -- liftoff of the 25th space shuttle mission, and it has cleared the tower. >> roger roll, "challenger." >> good roll, flight. >> my responsibilities for the flight, i was spaceflight communicator at capcom, the one actually communicating with the crew. >> engine throttling up. "challenger," go with throttle up. >> going with throttle up. >> i was looking at my screen,

and i turned and looked. and i did not understand or recognize what i saw. it didn't make sense to me, because it was this fiery mess. >> we've had negative contact. >> there was this angry, red glow. and this wail. from the hearts of the family, because they knew what i knew. that "challenger" crew was gone. >> today is a day for mourning and remembering. the future doesn't belong to the faint-hearted. it belongs to the brave. the "challenger" crew was pulling us into the future. and we'll continue to follow

them. there will be more shuttle flights and more shuttle crews, and yes, more volunteers, more civilians, more teachers in space. nothing ends here. our hopes and our journeys continue. >> to honor our fallen, we have to find this and fix it and fly it again. >> it was in a matter of days, we knew it was a solid rocket booster joint that had failed. the o-ring was a flawed design that had led to the loss of the "challenger." >> during the 30 months since the "challenger" accident, there have been hundreds of hardware changes not only to the rocket booster but also to the orbiter and the large liquid rocket fuel tank. numerous software changes had been implemented. all had been tested exhaustively. >> i wanted the opportunity to fly on that first return flight, and i was fortunate, being assigned to that crew.

>> we have the engine start. three, two, one, zero, and lift-off. lift-off. americans return to space. >> i tell you, i held my breath for two minutes until i saw the rocket motors coming off. i just went, thank god. and we continued on into orbit. >> let us remember the "challenger" crew. we can say at long last that dick, mike, judy, gerard, kristin and greg. dear friends, we have resumed the journey that we promised to continue for you.

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this is topo, created by androbots in san jose. manufacturers predict that within a few years robots like these will liberate us from mundane and time consuming household chores. >> he will guard your house. he will be your companion. he will bring you a soft drink out of the refrigerator. >> you under no circumstances mean to tell us that this is a necessary piece of equipment. this is just a fun item. >> well, telephones or whatever, they always start out as a luxury and then they turn out to

be a necessity. >> i had a robotics company that failed, damn it. and i believe if you can envision it in science fiction and you can do it, of course we're going to have robots running around the house. >> why is somebody going to buy this thing? one of the problems was the engineering mentality, we're going to build it because we can. >> watch out, some items have more functions than you might dream, like this samsung microwave oven tv security system. originally they invented microwaves to get you out of the kitchen. now you never have to leave. >> this is the first in-dash portable car video system. >> for the car? >> for the car, right. >> it's really frustrating and exhilarating to watch the way technology evolved. >> the home miner has a memo pad. and it will beep to tell us what's going on. >> we are going to spend the rest of our lives around a television set. >> right. >> almost nobody would say we are going to take technology to

this point. it's much more chaotic. this rise and fall, bubble and fall back. it is a confluence of developments that are all happening at the same time. >> small and portable are the watch words for the '90s for manufacturers showing their wares in chicago this week. sony has a new camcorder that fits in your hand and a combination tv/vcr that fits into your purse or briefcase. >> if you have one of these and one of these but you don't have one of these you are missing half the fun of owning a computer. this is a modem, with it you can turn your computer into a window on the world. >> i remember the first time i went online, as slow as it was because there was no internet, but it was like the first time i had scuba dived. there is this whole world out there. >> we can type a message like hi. it comes down at the bottom and simply press return and it will be broadcast to everybody in the room.

>> does anybody say anything meaningful or useful in these things? >> there is a lot of social banter. it is an area for people to meet friends. >> people falling and love and getting married on line. >> exactly. >> i remember the first time, you know, the the modem dialing. here's a chat room with 12 other people typing in real time from wherever they happened to be. blew me away. >> there is tremendous demand. if you look at all the online services, bulletin board, user groups, various things, there is literally a hyper culture developing, almost a cult. >> those early information services greatly multiplied the power of what a personal computer was. >> since they joined prodigy, a computer service accessed by telephone, they do everything from checking the weather map to shopping online for christmas gifts. they even buy and sell stocks. the experts tell us this is just the tip of the iceberg of what's

to come. >> there were all kind of crazy ideas that really foreshadowed the next explosion of technology. >> a human being drives through aspen by touching the tv screen. >> is it reasonable to assume that our children will have such devices? >> i think it's reasonable to assume you will have all these things in your home in a short amount of time. >> the thing about decades is they don't often actually arrive on time. but when it comes to the world of technology, it really did. the world fundamentally changed in the 1980s and the world we live is was born in some ways. >> this was the decade in which technology in general made our personal lives just that much richer and easier than they had been before, at least those of us who could figure out which buttons to push. >> we went from invention to innovation. innovation is taking a idea into a product. >> these concepts of digital random access, mobile, portable and cheap started to catch on.

>> different ways to run a business. different ways to communicate with your friends. different ways to experience virtual worlds. i don't think we've ever seen a decade like that, frankly. >> there was realization this kind of technology was going to be a part of our lives. it's where our work and entertainment and all of that is going to reside. >> i believe that what is happening today is truly a revolution in the deepest sense of the word, that 30 or 40 years from now it's going to be hard to recognize the way we live. >> technology can make our life better. and technology means that anything's possible. >> it is a fascinating future, but one which computer scientists themselves are beginning to question. for example, with a free flow of information, can someone tap into my home computer and invade my privacy? will electronic mail eventually lead to electronic junk mail? will the stores as we know them today eventually disappear? and don't many shoppers really like squeezing the tomatoes?

will we wind up with a cashless, paperless society? and do we really want one? these are the kinds of social questions which the scientists say society should answer. ♪ ♪ a crowded democratic field for between 20 and a new poll shows former vice president joe bide en is in the lead, and he hasn't even announced he's running. more on that ahead. also, dueling protests in venezuela as the country spends a third day without power. we'll take you there. also ahead this hour, equal pay for equal -- members of the national soccer team hope to make that a reality. >> we'll talk about that with one of our sports analysts. coming to you live from atlanta, i'm natalie allen. >> i'm george howell.

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