No Zytrons In Range

My parents dropped off some books I had as a kid, including the Usborne Guide to Audio and Radio (ISBN 0-86020-641-6). Published in 1982, it’s an education book teaching kids how modern technologies like radio and cassette tapes work.

Anyway, I thought these two pages were interesting:

(Pre-usual, click image for biggification.)

I’d like to make fun of it, but actually their predictions aren’t far off, even the satellite radio/TV and the fiber-to-the-home. (Although I can’t get fiber to my house, screw you Verizon, other people can so I guess it still counts.) I think I’ve even seen a wristwatch with a radio in it, although I’m not sure.

The self-tuning radio one is just odd… I’m pretty sure that radios in 1982 could “re-call” stations, considering the radio in my dad’s truck from 1965 could.

The CD prediction is cheating, since CDs were invented several years before this book was authored.