It’s 1975…

July 28, 2008

…and IBM is about to show you The Future!

A couple of things strike me about this set of presentation slides someone has found and scanned.

The first is that they clearly predate presentation software such as Powerpoint, and as such are mercifully free of the horrible stylistic habits such software has produced. Note how the slides are obviously designed to augment the vocal part of the presentation, rather than being an alternate version of it. Talking about a computer? Don’t put up text from your talk, just show a picture of the computer and actually talk about it. If you must use text, make it a few words which summarize the point you are trying to get across.

The second thing that strikes me is how closely the slide sequence showing the computer system reminds me of the opening sequence of Space: 1999. Replace "September 13th 1999" with "Commodity increase / World monetary crisis deepens" and you’re almost there. The IBM 370 wouldn’t look out of place in Moonbase Alpha’s main mission, either.

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