“Thank You, Beep …” has been part of me since the first time I read it, in an hp publication forty years ago. I’ve been wanting to read it again, and, finally, I can, thanks to someone wanting to sell a copy of that publication on ebay today (3/18/19). Tightwad that I am, I searched using info from that posting — [gordon dickson beep] — www.google.com — and found a link to a 15 MB pdf image of the original article in Paula’s Reading Room.
Considering the path personal tech has taken in the last forty years, I hope you’ll enjoy reading this article now as much as I did then.
One comment to ““Thank You, Beep …”: a 1979 look at personal technology”
Oh yeah I remember getting that magazine in the mail back when the first HPseries pocket calculators were the last word in personal computing-especially if you were an engineer or financial statistician. At that time, the story was interesting but far-fetched. Nowadays, I marvel at how he nailed it for the smart-phone.