Tomorrow's World - Office of the Future 16 April 1969 - BBC 

And just like the real offices of the future, they're all using outdated electronic equipment.

Man: And quietly Machine: BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

"I needn't ever get out of this chair' And that's how it all started.

I've been sitting sitting here open-mouthed, watching people from 50 years ago wire the pixels on the first 7x5 digital LED displays by hand. This was as fascinating as I imagine watching the first humans make fire would be.

For the physics interested individual in the 21st century *this clip is an absolute gem of history*. I will even go so far as to say that it may be one of the most important "popular technology" related videos of the last century. Not only does it open with what has to be one of the first tv appearances of the living legend James Burke himself (of Connections fame), but moves on to show in loving detail how Ray Davis Jr. collected his "little bottles of nothing" as his wife called them, which would earn him the 2003 Nobel in physics for the discovery of neutrino flavor oscillation (the sun's core temperature isn't a million degrees cooler than theory predicted after all, but rather a third of the neutrinos are 'disappearing' on their way to us from the sun). And on top of all of that, at the end we see what has to be the very first light emitting diode numeric display ever created using hand crafted red GaAsP diodes built at "wafer scale" directly on little slabs of hand cut GaAs. A technology that now, 50 years later in the form of gallium nitride, is the dominant lighting technology set to take over all other forms of lighting throughout the world. Absolutely incredible.

This is amazing. He wasn't wrong at all... LCD's and similar panels are so common these days it's hard to imagine a world without them.

That was quite a bizarre and surreal first five minutes

So, they imagine Skype as a whole piece of furniture.

Thank the lord that was not the office of the future.

Gallium Arsenide is what LEDs are made out of they are literally making LEDs 13:05

It took until 30 seconds before the end before i knew what the fuck they were making

Its quite amazing to think that in 1967, they had only made 4 of those displays, but by 1974 they had the technology to rebuild a man's body with bionic implants for only 6 million dollars, including giving him an eye that could zoom in and legs that could run at 60mph. Amazing.

When I started watching I could not tell if I was watching Tomorrows World or an episode of The Twilight Zone.

World's first ASMR video.

Amazing how things are better than those people could have ever imagined

Imagine taking a telephone and a tiny camera like that where ever you go!

those 60's office babes are much hotter then the modern ones.

I can't believe that's the origin of LCD displays! Amazing! Back when Britain used to invent stuff and everyone had a combover

really ancient technological history. Fascinating at how far we've come in such a short time. And the future? We can't even imagine.

Amazing to see this and to realize that computers were not really envisaged as being on every desk in the future. The first thing he touches on his desk is a pen and paper. They also did not foresee LCD panels. Obviously not watching Star Trek which came out at about this time.

Try telling anyone these days that technology leaves them alone

James Burke is a genius. Love it.

Loved this show as a young child!. Would watch in awe....🙂

It's uncanny how accurate the prediction was. My office is just like that.

AWESOME! I never imagined they could make semiconductor wafers by hand! 70 years before this show aired, the LED was discovered by accident, and nobody really cared because apparently they couldn't think of any use for a small yellow light.

James Burke, my man, I love how vision of the future is no only paperless but also lacks human contact which seems pretty accurate in some ways to our current reality.

OMG that music... My childhood. memories.

Really eye-opening mixture of conjecture/science/engineering. How many people, (especially youngsters) would have watched this on prime time TV (there wasn't much else to watch), then been inspired to find out more. Some of these viewers would go on to study then work, developing more amazing things. The BBC is in a unique position to create and broadcast a lot more content like this today... where the hell is it? We need a whole lot more high quality science/engineering content like this. I like how this mixes broad themes and really specific detailed content too. It's proper broadcasting and most viewers would take away from this something they didn't know about before.

All these years and I still haven’t had a BJ 39 arrive at my desk!

Great and good information. Thank you for sharing.🙏

The beginnings of the practical LED display. Amazing.

JUST ME AND MY EXECUTIVE PRISM

I can't bloody wait for the future!

High-ho, high-ho, it's off to work we go! Hey, I can't be the only person who caught that at the beginning.

love the 7:00 Mark. pouring liquids, removing his tin foil, gases in the air. no protection, no gloves, no mask, no goggles. Either he was reckless or we have gone health and safety mad lol

Machines do as they're told, I'd like to see them deal with my computer always acting up.

"They're worth around £100 each, and at that price need to be handled with great care..." At that time a standard terraced house in London was around £5000

a colleague rushed into my office and asked to use my dictaphone I said use your finger like everybody else

This is unique BBC programme

I'm still not 100% what these new "crystal lights" are. I assume they're Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)?? Pretty wild that this is just the beginning of what is now the most common source of electric light and display technology.

Now it all fits on a phone

"The great thing about machines is that they do what they're told... They're obedient." HA HA HA! He has clearly never been to the _actual_ future (our present) where machines are far from obedient and forever breaking down.

How come he is the only man in the building and all others are girls, like Japanese animations?

Sir Isaac Newton "If I see further it is because I am standing on the shoulders of giants" So many ideas and discoveries have come before us.

It's crazy to think that something like those displays were insanely expensive to produce in a professional environment, and now they can be made in a home lab...

It was amazing inventory and thanks to those who were actually working and discovering

It's funny how the real future is often more futuristic than predicted.

For last 50 years we made more discoveries and new tecnologies than in last 2000 years. Look at 1969 and now what marvelous times we live in

my grampa said he was always went home from his office (he works at a bank) at 3 PM.... my brother now works at a bank, and sometimes he doesn't even go back home for 3 days......

The L.E.D part was most interesting,great to watch.

That motorised cabinet is nothing short of ingenious.

Up with the office that doesn't have a phone! I hate talking on the phone at work - I'd much rather be emailed.

48 years later and I'm watching this on an LCD screen with 3,686,400 windows

Woah, that clip about the Gallium Crystal Lights could do with more exposure and a vid in it’s own right! Nowadays we call them „LEDs”, and they’ve become a handy and essential part of everyday life! 😁 (And the foresight of the presenter is commendable! Had Concorde survived the post-9/11 dip in air travel, it would almost certainly have an all-LED (Or „Glass”) cockpit! 💡🛫😁) Mind you: I would *never* ever have suspected that LEDs (Or at least single chip LED arrays) were a British invention! Bravo! 💡🇬🇧😇

In the future, everything will be viewed through mirrored tubes.

Amazing

Pretty cool mining scene, I live in Sudbury Ontario and work indirectly in the mining business. That ppe wouldn’t get you underground these days! We also have the snolab (Sudbury neutrino observatory) - I believe it uses heavy water for detection though. Anyway, these old videos are fascinating - what an amazing time to be alive!

Anyone know how they filmed those shots in the intro? Such an interesting effect

Heh, these days that display is the speedometer on the dashboard of a car.

This is more complicated than it needs to be

@BGDPPL That was one of the first numeric LED displays, waay too big for a watch. The first digital watches with LED displays were intruduced in the seventies, they were expensive, heavy and the batteries didn't last long. Towards the end of the seventies, they came up with liquid chrystal displays, which were much more energy efficient.

Wow it's that hard to make a LED 😮

I love this thing, because they're beyond today 😂😂

Plot twist - he's the serial killer.

Very few people predicted the effect of the internet and WWW on our daily lives. I can only think of Arthur.C.Clarke making such a prediction.

Only thing they got wrong was the office of the future is sitting on your kitchen table and you'll spend much of the time saying "you're on mute".

1) Meh. 2) They were able to detect individual atoms of Argon?? 3) All those people HANDLING the semiconductor! No wonder it was so expensive! We in the 21st century assume automation perform those processes.

The same robotic desk is still in development I saw it last week

13:10 They were thinking OLED displays before LCD! I wonder why it has taken so long and why fluorescent displays have been the preferred choice for the uses described?

With a laptop, cell phone, and a Verizon Wifi hotspot my office is wherever I am at the time.

Just before my 1st birthday:)

The first LED watch was around 1970. I first saw it in a James Bond film.

Some where around the room the monitor fell off the robotic tray.

This is a genuine depiction of a 1970's office, so I guess they got it right pretty much...

This voice is just G O D - L I K E

If they tried making tomorrow's world today by the time it got to air it would be yesterday's world.

None of my furniture moves on its own. Progress my arse.

“No distractions” lol.

Lovin’ those kinky boots 😂

"No distractions !" guess they didn't imagine anything about Internet Distractions

1:44 - LOL.. Today, we'd simply take a pic of it on our cell phone and text it anywhere in the world within ten seconds.

If i worked with some of them tasties that automated executive does i would refuse to work from home.

Incredible how they made artisanal production of LED chips in 1969. Watching it on an OLED screen with one thousand time more LEDs on the panel. What irony.

love how health and safety didn't get in the way back then

What the actual fuck have I just watched?

When will the BJ 39 be available in the UK??

"They just... leave you alone." lol, wow they were shortsighted. Ever since the dawn of the internet, they have pestered us with advertisements.

tells about one of the most famous experiments in physics - the neutrino . 15 atoms in 3 months . 1-2 atoms per week !

2017 and still don't have a robot assistant in the office like predicted but we will get there one day

Intelligent broadcasting for a different age.

I like how they gave the automatic receptionist a top speed of almost-stationary in order to mimic how long it can take for your receptionist to finish having her shit, washing her hands and walking back to the office.

Stanley sat at his desk drinking coffee.

Awesome. The first 8 segment LED. Heh!

Somethings they did get right. In the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey while on the space station on of the characters is using a tablet.

All that tech for 1969 and they have a scrunched up aluminium foil lid!

And this is why it takes 35 years to make an iphone.

" BJ-39 works for me, much better than a human being " ? lol the mind boggles

I see. This is the office where Dalek used to work, before he went mad and decided to exterminate everyone. I wonder if reason was a declined pay raise or stupidity of his boss?

I feel much of the old broadcasting was more in-depth and thorough than todays mainstream entertainment. I have a DIY magazine home that explains the basics of how to change the transmission in a car.

I once bought a book that listed all the major predictions for the future, from the previous 150 years. Only 8% were anywhere near accurate. Some were hysterically funny. REMEMBER--it was the boss of IBM--who,in 1946 said, there will only be a need for one large computer.