Featured Video: San Franciscans Read Local Newspapers On Their Home Computers (1981)

Before we were wired beyond belief, a few hundred forward-thinking souls in San Francisco in 1981 got a jump on the future and gained access to the Examiner and Chronicle newspapers on their home computers (though it took them over two hours to receive the text of a single edition). As Steve Newman exclaims in this KRON report, “This is only the first step in newspapers by computer.” The tone of the piece suggests that newsprint might someday disappear, but that the actual newspaper companies would be fine. Of course, the rise of the Internet has been the bane of most of them, including the Examiner and Chronicle, which have both struggled while responding to the revolution that began in a small way on their home turf nearly 30 years ago.

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