Old School Monday: TV and the PC

Posted 09/07/2010 at 9:01am | by Bryan Del Rizzo

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For this week’s installment of Old School Monday (but actually a Tuesday because of Labor Day) we’ve got a little HTPC Before-and-After. The After, of course, is our recent feature on how to build the ultimate 3D home theater PC. You should check out the article, but the long and the short of it is that we set up a beast of a system, able to play video in 3D, play and record up to 4 TV channels at once, and stream pretty much everything under the sun from the internet.

So what’s the Before? It’s this beauty, from The October 1996 issue of Boot (our predecessor): 

In 1996, the idea of a living room PC was still on shaky footing. The article cites a survey that says half of adults would be interested in TV/PC hybrid, but as we know that market never quite materialized. High-end TVs are becoming more computer-like, with web-enabled overlays and widgets, but the real incursion of the computer into the living room is coming via PC-like consoles and inexpensive streaming boxes.  

Still, it's an interesting bit of perspective, so check it out: