50 years ago was 1966. Judging by many SF novels from that time, people were actually rather pessimistic about computing power we would have right now. Almost u

50 years ago was 1966. Judging by many SF novels from that time, people were actually rather pessimistic about computing power we would have right now. Almost universally, authors predicted some progress, but still thought computers would be expensive, large and not as powerful as what we have now. On the other hand, they were very optimistic about space travel, AI algorithms, robotics, energy prodution/storage tech, personal transportation and the state of industrial engineering.