Teletext! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext
I think it was more of a thing outside of the US. It looks cool though.
this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2025
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It's still a thing here in the Netherlands. You can even download the Teletext app and browse the news that way on your phone. Some people like it because it drops all the bullshit and just gives you the news. No ads, no long essays, just short summaries of the most important information.
It looks like this:
I still remember some of the channels used. Vaguely, but still. News, which time a program is on, and when you're alone in the room, checking out the naughty adverts, as there might even be rudimentary boob graphics in the style of old Nokia logos.
That is an impressively accurate-looking future TV for something drawn in 1934. TVs of the time looked something like this:
This looks a LOT like a 1930s radio, combined with a microfilm viewer, which was very much available at libraries everywhere in the 1930s (and can still be found in archives today).
A microfilm viewer is definitely the inspiration, but is this 1930s? It looks more like 1950s to me. Even then, notice that the thing holding the screen is huge. I can't find an image of a definitively 1930s one, but I did find this proof of concept for a home one from 1935. Pretty different form factor.
I don't think they had passenger dirigibles in the 1950s, they were phased out earlier. They crashed and burned too much.
What does a passenger dirigible have to do with anything?
Insert picture of a modern newspaper page with 3 visible sentences of text and the rest is begging for subscriptions, sponsored content, straight up ads, and other bullshit.
Old newspapers were filled with ads too. The only thing that makes current ads obnoxious are the pop up's, video, and JavaScript tricks.
Well that’s not the only thing that makes them obnoxious, but it’s a huge contributor.
Old newspapers also didn't have ads breaking up the articles. None of this "ad between every paragraph" bullshit for the ancestors!
The did it with "continued on page 10". This forced you to flip through several pages of ads to get to the rest of the story. It wasn't just on the front page. They did it inside as well.
Yes, but that was generally because stories don't always fit nicely on a page. I've seen plenty of old-timey newspapers and laid out a few modern ones. It's all about what fits on the page.
Also, newspaper writers were paid like shit. E.A. Poe was the editor of a fairly big newspaper and a published author (though not very sucessful except for The Raven) and was still constantly on the verge of financial collapse.
Ah yes, I also remember Teletext!
It’s still a thing. I gotta listen to my granddad regularly that he wishes the internet was more like the teletext.
My mother sent me a screenshot from teletext the other day.
He has a point
Show him w3m in the terminal lol
Remember tuning to the right page number and then having the screen flick over right when you arrived so you'd have to sit there for 5 minutes waiting for it to scroll round again? If the internet work like that we'd all have a lot more patience with each other.
Microfiche was a thing when I was in elementary school in the 80s. They taught us to use that and to use the Dewey Decimal System. Cue the meme of the guy holding the “I learned cursive for no reason,” sign.
I’ve been typing for so long that I have the handwriting of a child. It was never terribly legible. Now it’s like I’ve had a stroke.
Anyway, cool throwback.
If a throw down on cool and even more old and useless skills learned in schools is what you want, I'm for today. Not only did I need to learn learn about the Dewey Decimal System and cursive hand writing, (as a lefty I was nearly forced to learn to write right handed in school), but I had to learn how to use a slide rule. Calculators weren't around until I was about 17. Now everyone carries one and can't do any math.
Television as a working concept was solidly in place by the 1920s. They just needed to agree on a standard, make the tech cheap enough, and get broadcast stations built. Had WW2 not interrupted things, we might have had television as a bigger commercial thing sooner than the 1950s/1960s. The clipping does look like the style of Popular Science or Popular Mechanics of the 1930's era though.
Handwriting of a child; broke. Handwriting of a doctor; bespoke
I feel this so hard. “Library Science” was like, “if you don’t know the Dewey system, you wont be able to use libraries and then you’re DOOMED”.
I sometimes forget how to write by hand now.
Welcome to the Internet by Bo Burnam starts playing
Wow, I misread "HM" as "HAHA" and had a different expectation of what the bottom text was going to be
Even without that, it's quite a strange headline to use in an ad.
Especially compared with his facial expression. He very much look like he is savouring the news.
It really is. You'd think they'd choose a positive news story.
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See the problem is the dirigible should be up in air, not down in sea.
That's not very typical, I'd like to make that point
History says otherwise:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Akron -- Sank off the coast of New Jersey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Macon_(ZRS-5) -- Sank off the coast of Monterey, California.
.... and instead of reputable journalists and independent organizations printing our news for us on the television .... ANYONE with a pulse and a grade ten level of writing skill can publish anything for anyone to read .... and the evolution after that will be that ANYONE with access to a computer can use Artificial Intelligence to publish an entire feature news story out of thin air promoting whatever idea, theory, belief or information they want regardless if it is true or not and no one will be able to tell the difference.
Kind of, now our telinewspaper mostly has made up bullshit
My God, they predicted Drudge Report