Technologists knew for the longest time that the world was going to be much more connected, that we would become a global hive. But what form would it take? Before Apple perfected ideas hatched at Xerox and brought them to the marketplace, a lot of people believed that television would be the medium that would unite us (with help from a phone connection, of course). TVs were already in every home, so even though it never came to pass, it made some sense.

From Bell Labs, a 1979 look at TVs and PCs connecting us: