PREDICTIONS

"I think there is a world market for about five computers."
Remark attributed to Thomas J. Watson(Chairman of the Board of International Business Machines), 1943

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home."
Ken Olson, President of DEC, World Future Society Convention, 1977

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949

" I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years."
John Von Neumann (ca. 1949)

Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1 1/2 tons.
Popular Mechanics, March 1949

``Some day we will have personal computers and live more normally.''
Donald E. Knuth, `The Errors of TeX', 14 March 1978