Jonathan's blog

Some years ago, my dad bought me a book about electronics, computers and robots from a jumble sale for 10p. It was published in 1984 and probably about 15 years out of date when I received it.

Today I came across it on my bookshelf back at my parents’ house, and there’s a double-page spread in it called Television and Video in the Year 2000. It has a picture of how a house might look in the millennium year.

Of course, speaking today with a decade’s hindsight, the house looks like something from Thunderbirds, but some of its predictions have indeed come true. Let me reproduce it for you here.

When you are grown up and your children are going to school, this book may not exist. In fact, schools as you know them may not exist either, and libraries with books may be museums. All this will happen because of television and video. Television was invented during the 1920s by John Logie Baird.

Studying by Television

Let’s visit a home of the future, say in the year 2000, and see what everyone is doing. Alice is 12 years old. She is not wasting time watching television; she is at school. That’s her teacher on the screen. She manages to see Alice once a week to check her written work, but not for long. By teaching on television she could have a thousand pupils in her class at once, but she doesn’t have more than a hundred. Alice likes to ‘go to school’ in the living-room where there is a row of flat screens against the wall. She wears headphones to listen to the teacher.

Alice’s brother, Peter, likes to work by himself in his bedroom with a smaller, personal screen. He is 20 years old and, although he lives in Britain, he’s studying with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. His microcomputer and screen are linked by telephone to the local library. They are sending Peter a new article written in America. They received it overnight from the United States during the cheaper-rate computer time.

Work and Leisure

Dad has worked at home for the last five years, ever since his supermarket became fully automated. As supply manager for the supermarket, he checks the stock on the shelves every Monday morning visually through the closed-circuit television cameras. On his home screen he can also study the computer totals produced by the automatic check-out tills.

Mum is watching a live television programme. Her favourite daytime programme is the 24-hour European news station which the family receive through their satellite dish receiver on the roof.

Grandad Jones is the only member of the family who uses the video disc. At the moment he’s looking at a dahlia catalogue, and the video disc gives the best picture available on any system.

Granny Jones can hardly walk and spends her time watching the goings-on out in the street through the local closed-circuit camera system. The council originally set up the system to help stop burglaries.

I’ve also photographed the image from the book – apologies for the quality. I might even get round to scanning it one day. Click for a larger version.

A house of the future

So how accurate were the predictions?

Lots of  the things mentioned in the picture are easily possible with today’s technology. But few people do them because they are inconvenient or expensive, or simply a bad idea.

It would be easy to set up a videoconferencing system to allow pupils like Alice to have school lessons at home – but nobody would do it because it misses out on an awful lot of face-to-face contact. Peter’s use of technology to get hold of documents is more realistic.

Likewise the father working from home – it’s possible to install cameras around Tesco and have the stock manager working from home, but it’s useless and expensive.

As for the mother watching 24-hour live news and the grandad watching what’s essentially a DVD – spot on. But how bored must the granny be to sit there watching CCTV in her own street?

It seems to me the biggest omission of this futuristic house is the use of computers and the Internet – although lots of the video systems in use seem to do computer-like tasks. Each person in the house is using specialist equipment for each task, and each piece of equipment has its own source of external connectivity.

The beauty of modern computers is that they can do a wide variety of tasks, and that the Internet can be used to carry any sort of data, whether it’s a text document or a video stream.

The most saddening thing about that house is that nobody is talking to anyone else, and nobody has any reason to go outside. I hope that doesn’t come true!

Strada Cadence

Over the years I’ve had a number of cycle computers. Most have been Cat Eye, although some haven’t. It’s clear to me that Cat Eye make the best cycle computers – both in ease of use and in build quality (which is rather important when it will be subjected to rain, sun, vibration, heat and cold).

A few months ago I fitted a Cat Eye Strada Wireless to my racing bike. It was my first wireless computer and I’ve been extremely impressed with the results. The computer itself has a single-button interface and is nice and easy to use. The numbers are big enough to read easily while you’re riding.

But recently I’ve been tempted by the gimmick^[1] of seeing my pedalling cadence too. I enjoy cycling and I love gadgets. So I ordered a Cat Eye Strada Cadence for my racing bike, and moved the Strada Wireless to my commuting bike.

The Strada Cadence is a wired computer, and you need to go through the rigmarole of attaching cables to your bike frame with cable ties. Unusually, the sensor attaches to the inside of the chainstay of the rear wheel. The other sensor attaches to the outside of the chainstay so it can sense the pedals going round.

Installation is no more tedious than any other wired computer, and you get loads of tiny black cable ties in the bag. The only tricky bit is strapping up the loose cable by the sensors. They both share a common wire back to the computer, which splits off into a Y around 8 inches from the sensors. If the shape of your bike means the sensors have to be at different positions then you’ll have to take up the slack cable securely. Unless you want it to go in your rear wheel!

I don’t know if my racer is unusual, but with the pedal crank magnet in place, it was a lot more than 3mm from the chainstay sensor, which is the distance it has to be to make it work. I got round this by putting a piece of rubber in between the crank and magnet to move them a bit closer. An easy fix, especially if you have spare rubber feet lying around – but it’s a shame Cat Eye didn’t provide them.

The FlexTight bracket is great, as it easily lets you install the computer on the handlebars or the stem. On both bikes I have the computers mounted on the stem, to save maximum room for lots of lights.

Using the computer is also easy – just press anywhere on the unit to “click” it and cycle through the modes. The Strada Wireless and Strada Cadence both have the same modes, except that the Strada Cadence also has a cadence mode. This simply shows your current pedalling cadence, in revolutions per minute. There are no functions to show you the average or maximum cadence, like there are with the speed.

So, in summary, I would absolutely recommend that you get a computer from the Strada range. Up to you if you want to go for the wireless or cadence options. They might be a few quid more than the competitors, but it’s well worth it for the quality.

[1] Whether you see this as a gimmick or a training tool is entirely your own opinion!