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1954 Popular
Mechanics Photo Showing the Home Computer of the Future-Fiction!
Summary of the eRumor A picture of a man
standing in front of a large electronic contraption.
The eRumor claims that it's a picture from a 1954 issue of Popular
Mechanics magazine.
The caption says that scientists from the RAND Corporation put
together a model to illustrate how a "home computer" could
look in the year 2004.
The Truth
According to an article on the
Popular Mechanics web site, the picture is a hoax.
The picture was actually created by a man named Troels Eklund
Andersen, a Danish tech support technician.
He started with a picture of a mock submarine maneuvering room,
added an old TV handing from the wall, a 1970's teletype, and threw
in a picture of a hardware store owner from Ohio.
He entered the picture in a photo manipulation contest.
He never intended for it to be treated as a real picture.
According to Popular Mechanics, those who have been hoodwinked by
the picture include some people who should have known better.
Scott Mcnealy of Sun Microsystems used the picture in his Oracle
OpenWorld keynote speech in December, 2004 in San Francisco and
Lotus founder Mitch Kapor briefly had it posed on his blog.
Last updated 1/6/05
A real example of the eRumor as it has
appeared on the Internet:
