This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Technology Marches On!: From YKTTW
TTD: Antheia, the "Friends" example is in the description because it is such a perfect example of this trope. It helps clarify what we mean.
Andrusi: The secondary bullet point under Carousel of Progress example previously read as follows:
- However, the most recent refurbishment of the ride happened in 1994, and the final scene now takes place in the (then) distant future of... The Year 2000. (Incidentally, why they chose to change it from the original ending, set sometime in the late 1960s, is unknown, especially since 2000 is such a jump from the last scene, which is set in the late 1940s. Just how old is "Dad" anyway?) This leads to a particularly hilarious Reverse Funny Aneurysm when Grandma and Son start playing with what appear to be Virtual Boys and Power Gloves!
- "(then) distant" changed to "near" because by no stretch of the imagination is six years the "distant future." As well, the scene's intent is clearly to depict the near future, as it is essentially modern with the addition of technology that exists today and simply isn't commonly seen (there's nothing currently stopping voice activated appliances, for instance, except that nobody appears to care enough to try it).
- The parenthetical was removed, because we know exactly why the scene was changed—it's because the intention was for the show to end with "modern technology," and keeping it stuck in the sixties is pretty much the opposite of that.
- The particularly hilarious Reverse Funny Aneurysm is a stretch. The game system is clearly based on "virtual reality game of the future!!!" games that were commonly seen as trailer-type event attractions in the mid-nineties. The motion-sensitive controls, PSX-ish graphics, and spectator output to a TV screen are all characteristic of these. The only thing it has in common with the Virtual Boy is display goggles (particularly since the dialog implies it's a console), and the Power Glove was already outdated and effectively forgotten by this time. Though it is interesting that they made the crazy prediction that the future would have a hot new game console uses motion-sensitive controls.
Andrusi again: ...aaaand someone has put it right back with no explanation.
To help clarify what we mean here, an excellent example would be a scene in Friends, where Chandler gleefully describes all the awesome features of his brand new computer:
"Twelve megabytes of RAM, five hundred megabyte hard drive, with built-in spreadsheet capabilities and a modem that transmits at over 28,000 bps!"
That's nice. Meanwhile, this editor's computer (which is almost five years old, so you know it's on the older side) has twenty-one times the amount of RAM, eighty-two times the amount of hard drive space, and over two thousand times the internet speed!
- Sotanaht I believe tech might be marching on within this very wiki, as my own computer, which is also several years old, has 170 times the ram, 600 (1200 for both drives) times the drive space, although I also think this editor did thier math wrong, as my cable internet is 5mbps, which is only about 178 times... no where near 2000, they probably made the standard error of assuming their own bandwidth was measured in bites (its always bits), 178 x 8 > 2000
Various Things: The 1995 Bond film GoldenEye contained a good example, where the Bond Girl Natalya Simyonova reads out an order for several computers (which, IIRC, was explained in the novelization as being an old invoice she legitimately had access to thanks to her job). However, I'm not sure where on the page to put it, as the specs covered several categories (the only one I can remember was the 14.4kpbs modem - 486 CP Us may have been mentioned too).
Tamfang: Does this belong here? In Jack McDevitt's novel The Hercules Text (1986), the McGuffin is a set of about fifty discs containing a transmission from the stars. The "text" is 26 megabytes, and the discs can be erased by magnets, yet they're consistently described as "silvery laser discs". I imagine that the editor replaced "floppies" (because floppies were no longer new) without knowing anything about the practical properties of their successor.
