Ooh, computers...

Sometimes it is fun to watch old TV specials and behind the scenes features, especially ones talking about state-of-the-art effects and the such. I am watching a 'making of Babylon 5' documentary that was obviously made and aired in the mid 90s. In it, the host (Walter Keonig, aka Chekov from Star Trek) talks about how in the past sci-fi shows and movies used tiny models and motion control cameras and thousands of hours of work to produce only a few moments of screen time, a process that was top of the line for its time. But now they have ways of making special effects that can produce "amazing outer space scenes, without models, without strings, and believe it or not, without cameras." He sounded almost surprised when he said that. It's the 'believe it or not' part that makes me laugh. Nowadays it is not even worth mentioning that there are no cameras. Everyone understands the very basics of computer use for movies and TV, though the specifics are perhaps beyond the capabilities of most.
I find it interesting seeing how people view these emerging things, and just seeing how old and understood technologies were once new. It becomes easy to push these sorts of things into the background - the internet, for example, has become so intigrated into the world that people don't even think about it anymore. But there was a time when a worldwide connection of computers was weird and revolutionary.
It makes me wonder what we will see in ten or twenty years as normal that is right now a weird and shocking thing.

ooh, someone just mentioned a 'light-pen'.