The Information Highway

My old man would've been 68 years old today. I bought this new book for him, for Christmas, in 1995. It came with a CD-Rom. He was always banging on about something in the house called the internet. He probably knew everything that was in the book already.

Flicking through it now I find it more interesting retrospectively.
William H Gates III hopes the book "stimulates...and we can take advantage of all that's sure to be happening in the decade ahead". Wish I'd read it back then.

The old man had a personal computer in the house since way back.
There is a great shot of a "personal-computer-based interactive media server" from 1995. Man, you'd need a big study for one 'em back then.
There is also a picture of an IBM PC from 1981. It is hideous. It looks like something Homer Simpson would lean on whilst eating a doughnut and trigger a nuclear explosion.

In the appliances and applications chapter he writes about the connection between PCs and set-top boxes. "Eventually, almost every home (in the US) will have at least one, connected directly to the information highway". Not long now Billy. He touched on HDTV too.

Towards the end, the chapters are aimed at the fat market. Chapter 8 is called "Friction-Free Capitalism". Hmmm. Chapter 11, "Race for the Gold". You can see where it was headed. The 'Tinternet had so much more innocence back then.

The front cover shot was taken by Annie Leibovitz. She's a bit of a ledge in the old portrait department. I've seen much of her work in Sunday supplements over the years. I'm sure she is known to a blipper or 2 as much as the author is.
I like the cover shot of the open and empty American highway. She works closely WITH her subjects and I reckon the two of them collaborated to make him look as nerdy/geeky as possible in the picture. I like the Bill Gates story and think he's cool despite his huge specs.