Katie Couric: 1994-Can You Explain What Internet Is? (Video)

Gawker TV ^ | February 4, 2011 | Staff

[lbryce]

Katie Couric:Can You Explain What Internet Is? (Video)

Here's a recently re-discovered oldie—and goodie!—to show how far technology has come in the last two decades. Watch this Today Show clip from 1994, featuring Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel's complete confusion about what, exactly, the Internet is.

[dangerdoc]

I was a user of BBS since the 80’s. I subscribed to AOL in 93 or so when the opened the tent and gave access to the internet and never looked back.

That was not the best experience running a 14k baud modem and paying by the minute.

[Mr. K]

Hah! I got you all beat- I subscribed to something called ‘Promenade’ before it changed it’s name and got big and famous.

[bvw]

Cool.

[jimpick]

I had AOL too with a 14.4k modem in 1993. Most of the time it ran some where around 9.6k though. By the minute stunk. Always checking to see if you were over for the month.

[Joe 6-pack]

Can’t watch the video here at work, but I think the firing of the guy should be the real story here. Still, I don’t think that was a particularly stupid question for ‘94. I personally didn’t get online ‘til ‘95 and even then a lot of people thought it was ‘geeky’.

[Carpe Cerevisi]

Back in the early 80’s, at IBM, we had a network called the Internet. We used it to TP batch job output to other IBM sites. So that term was used well before AG ‘invented” it. Data sent over 50 KB lines, fast for that time.

I was referring specifically to the general public, the non-nerds who were possibly vaguely aware of "the information superhighway".

[The Comedian]

Today is a good day to die.
I didn't say for whom.

[dangerdoc]

I became an expert at logging in, downloading content and getting logged back off expediciously. I would then print out the reading material with the dot matrix printer.

ZZZZZZZZZZ, thump, click, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, thump, click ....repeat....

My wife hated it. When I explained what an injet printer was, she wanted to know what it sounded like. I told her it was virtually silent. She made me go down to the computer store and buy one.

[dangerdoc]

I became an expert at logging in, downloading content and getting logged back off expeditiously. I would then print out the reading material with the dot matrix printer.

ZZZZZZZZZZ, thump, click, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, thump, click ....repeat....

My wife hated it. When I explained what an inkjet printer was, she wanted to know what it sounded like. I told her it was virtually silent. She made me go down to the computer store and buy one.

[lbryce]

but I think the firing of the guy should be the real story here. Still, I don’t think that was a particularly stupid question for ‘94. I personally didn’t get online ‘til ‘95 and even then a lot of people thought it was ‘geeky’.

In the aftermath of the story of the guy being fired, and that the comment was made off-air, I'm inclined to agree with what you've said. The fact is that Miss Kouric for a laundry list of reasons makes for a very juicy target from a public locked and loaded for "Kouric".

[warsaw44]

Couric is a full blown moron.

The morning of 9/11 I turned the TV on and there she was talking about there must be a problem with the air traffic control as we watched the aftermath of the first plane in the WTC.

All of a sudden we see a second plane hit, giant fireball, everyone gasps and what comes out of Couric’s mouth -
“ Oh, no - well, indeed it does appear there is in fact a problem with air traffic control “

Ponder that for a moment. Bright sunny day and two planes fly into the tallest buildings in NYC and she thinks it was a problem with the traffic controllers? What average thought process would cause anyone to come to that conclusion? None - only a moron would come up with such a conclusion.

[Ghengis]

I had a 286 with a math coprocessor chip and a turbo switch. Got me to 2 mega hertz.

My first PC in 1991 (purchased with my tax refund) was a 386 40 mghz, with 4 meg of RAM and a 120 meg hard drive. It was pretty top of the line for its day. I remember debating with myself about converting to OS2 soon after. I decided against it as I'd have to buy 16 meg of RAM to make it run right.

By 1994, I'd been on the internet since 1989. Played on FidoNet BBS's a lot back then also.

[Ghengis]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a “Couric”?

I understand that it is a fecal weight measurement. A rather obscure measurement, only valuable to those who deal in such commodities.

[lbryce]

Lol. Monumentally banal, the stuff that comes out of here mouth. But it could have been worse. She could have blamed the planes crashing into the Towers as a consequence of “global warming”. Before anyone dismisses the possibility of it being blamed on greenhouse gas build-up, it’s still not quite as bizarre as Gore having said the severe, frigid weather we’ve been having was a consequence of global warming.

[lbryce]

ROTF. Brilliant, simply brilliant. I spent a few fleeting moments pondering a response to the question but couldn’t come up with anything worthy to post. You said it better than anything I could have imagined.

[NVDave]

Ask, and the information shall be presented:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=couric

[pgkdan]

bump...

[Ghengis]

I have to give credit to the South Park guys. They had an episode that covered this quite hilariously. I’m just riffing off of their play.

[lonestar]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is a “Couric”?

Trust me...ignorance is bliss!

[mthom]

I bet Sarah Palin knows what @ means.