The Future computer of the past, or a Future So Bright You Need A Steering Wheel

Fifty-five years ago, "Popular Mechanics" wrote an article describing what a house in the year 2004 would be like. Now, what would a house of the future be without a ginormous bathroom sized "home computer" with a steering wheel on it? It's interesting to see how wrong the good people at RAND laboratories really were. I especially love that last line of the article "the computer will be easy to uses!" In what world does that computer look easy to use? First of all, I counted 62 dials on the main body of computer, for god knows what purpose! Second, why does the typewriter have all that giant paper hanging out of it? Is it a punch tape code or what? And third, and may I say the most baffleing, why is there a giant steering wheel on it?! I mean, it can't be used for a mouse, as it only goes in circles, and it definitely can't be just decoration so why is there an enormous wheel on the computer? Seeing what people from the past thought about the future really makes you think....How far off are we with our visions of the computer of the future? Here's a nice picture of a Macintosh computer prototype that they think will be able to built by 2013

yes, it gets even thinner!

I hope that fifty years from now, somebody will mock our computers and make a fantastic blog post about it.