Forty-five years ago, the Ontario Educational Communications Authority (aka "TVOntario," similar to a regional version of PBS affiliates) sent researcher Barbara Morris to Japan to check out the country's advanced technology for a new series called "Fast Forward" (which was eventually carried by PBS).
Giant flat-screen displays... the internet... immersive AV experiences... all of those were a pipe dream in 1978. But the following article from Ms. Morris for TVOntario's Travel Section gives us a good perspective on not only a westerner's view of Japan's rapid post-war transition into a booming consumer economy, it also provided a preview of the impact the country has had on technology over the past four and half decades:
