Retro Friday: Our Televised Future, Circa 1992

It's always fascinating to watch these news stories from 20 years (or more) ago, predicting our telecommunications future. Some things they get sorta right (check out the primitive DVR usage) while others, not so much (not a single mention of the coming Internet?). This CBS News piece from 1992 takes us back to a time when paying bills on a TV screen seemed exotic and VCRs repped the only control you really had in TV viewing.

The report centers on trials for a new TV device being tested in Cerritos. It all seems so primitive now.

Also: Check out the young, pre-VP Al Gore. And watch a National Cable TV Assn. exec predict the death of newspapers -- but blame it on the telcos. (Again, the idea of the Internet is not yet in anyone's mind.)

Some things, though, don't change: Our hatred for the cable companies and their price gouging. Watch above.