I recall a Golden Age of SF story, set far in the future, where a professor begins his lecture with "Young gentlemen of the Empire . . ." Gentlemen. Not ladies. Most colleges and universities were still single-sex in the 1930s -- the author could envision a future where interstellar travel is commonplace, but not a future where coeducation is commonplace.
In Starman Jones (1953), Max Jones has an eidetic memory and has seen and memorized the books of computation-tables essential to starship navigation; therefore, when the books are lost, he becomes indispensable. It never seems to have occurred to Heinlein that computers would make the books themselves dispensable.
Many SF writers wrote of a future full of computers, but almost none envisioned the Internet, one arguable exception being Murray Leinster in "A Logic Named Joe." And in the final part of Asimov's "The Last Question," everyone carries an "AC link," but that's for communicating with a supercomputer, not with other users; and Joe appears to work the same way.
In Starman Jones (1953), Max Jones has an eidetic memory and has seen and memorized the books of computation-tables essential to starship navigation; therefore, when the books are lost, he becomes indispensable. It never seems to have occurred to Heinlein that computers would make the books themselves dispensable.
Many SF writers wrote of a future full of computers, but almost none envisioned the Internet, one arguable exception being Murray Leinster in "A Logic Named Joe." And in the final part of Asimov's "The Last Question," everyone carries an "AC link," but that's for communicating with a supercomputer, not with other users; and Joe appears to work the same way.
