The announcement of today’s new iPad with its retina display has undoubtedly propelled technology a few years into the future. The amount of features packed into the new iPad and its accompanying software is pretty mind blowing when you slow down and take a minute to think of our progress over the last 40 years. Mankind has been dreaming of such a device for over 75 years. In the April, 1935 issue of Everyday Science and Mechanics, this crazy contraption above was their dream version of the iPad.
Writers for the publication dreamed up this invention which they thought would be the next logical step in the world of publishing. The device was a basic microfilm reader mounted on a large pole that allowed users to kick back and read their favorite magaazine or book from the comfort of their lazy boy. It even had levers to adjust the viewing angle of the screen.
It has proved possible to photograph books, and throw them on a screen for examination, as illustrated long ago in this magazine. At the left is a device for applying this for home use and instruction; it is practically automatic.
If reading micro-filmed photographic magazines was an inventors wet dream back in 1935 then I’d love to see those inventors O-M-G all over the iPad’s retina screen while it plays the latest Michael Bay flick.
[via Smithsonian]