We get so used to having the internet, that we often start applying the “internet thinking” in other non-internet areas. Sometimes when I’m looking for an item in the grocery store, I get the urge to google where the product would be in the store.
Today I was browsing through a January 3, 1985 edition of the Chicago Tribune. My library provides access to PDF archives, so I can see the original layout of the newspaper.
While browsing through this 1985 PDF, I thought, “this is what the internet was like in 1985”. Like literally, looking at these pages on my computer, I felt like I was online looking at some sort of webpage from 1985.
PDF as the internet? One of my graphic design teachers in college from the mid-1990s taught us that the future of the internet was PDF files. Legit. That’s what we were taught. All the internet would be interlinked PDF files.
Well, now in 2022, I am viewing a PDF online. So there is a tiny bit of truth that the internet would be interlinked PDF files. Heh.