A Kid's Whole Future Catalog

I posted this as part of the extended discussion on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37872774

It's a very interesting and surprisingly well researched look at the future for a kids book. It was available to me at my elementary school library and was almost constantly checked out by a few children and myself who poured over the pages digesting every single thing in them. To say it was influential on me would be an understatement.

While these things are usually tacky, it was more accurate than I expected. Partly that's because it's from 1982 and isn't very old.

The first page suggests you might be able to store the entire library of Congress on your home computer in 2000--a perfect prediction by my count.

The standard trope about future predictions is that we imagine things that currently exist being better (eg flying cars, video phones) but miss out on technology that isnt yet in the public conscience.

I remember this very fondly from my childhood. I did actually send away for a couple of the mail-order things in there!

I guess this should say (1982).