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Even before EPCOT Center opened, it had one instantly recognizable symbol, the architectural marvel that is Spaceship Earth. This eighteen-story geodesic sphere which welcomed guests into the park could be seen from anywhere in the park, as well as from quite a distance away outside the park. But far from being just some eye candy decoration, the structure held an attraction to help set the stage for the rest of the park.
Spaceship Earth gave guests a look at the history and future of communication. And as is always the case, it was much easier to present the history aspect than to predict the future. Remember, this was 1982. Just about every home had television sets, radios and telephones. But relatively few had a VCR, cable or a home computer. Mobile telephones were only seen in the movies, and even then they were monstrous in size. Very few people had a home computer, and those computers were very limited in what they could do. The Internet was still just a dream among only the most informed computer users. Even compact disc players were several years away. The world was on the verge of a communication revolution, so it is quite significant that an attraction about communication had such a prominent place.
So now, let us look back at the ride as it originally was: Entering up through the bottom of the sphere, we come to a futuristic circular room. Inside the room are the attraction vehicles, slowly moving around its perimeter. We step onto the moving walkway and into our vehicles, referred to as "time machines". Once the doors have closed, we begin moving up an incline. We see projections of Cro-Magnon men in various scenes up above us, before coming upon the first scene. In the earliest form of communication, a man tells stories to others around a campfire in a cave, while others are painting simple pictures on the cave walls, pictures which tell a story, recording past events. The narrator tells us this is "the dawn of recorded time."
From there we move on to ancient Egypt, where one man is making papyrus, an early form of paper, which will become instrumental in recording communications. We see this happening as someone writes down a pharaoh's message, which will become a scroll. Nearby, another man carves hieroglyphics into a column. We then come upon Phoenician merchants, who took scrolls with them on their ships. Their alphabet made it easier to write things down. After this we see three men acting out a scene from a Greek play. The Greeks used plays to communicate ideas to an audience, transforming the written word into a performance. From Greece we proceed to Rome, the center of the ancient world. The Romans use chariots to carry messengers to all parts of the world, across their great empire. But then we smell smoke, signaling the fall of Rome. Near to this scene but far in actual geography, we come to Islamic men having a discussion, gathering thoughts from the books next to them, while another looks at the stars using an early sextant. We next find monks endlessly working through the night to copy books; one has fallen asleep from exhaustion.
To contrast the monks' work of copying books by hand, we come to one of the great communication revolutions, Gutenberg's printing press. Now books can be produced with much greater ease, making it simpler to pass on and preserve ideas. As we proceed on to Italy and the Renaissance, we see musicians performing, an artist painting and another sculpting, before we find Michelangelo lying on a scaffold painting the Sistine ceiling.
From the Renaissance we arrive in more modern times, where a large 19th century man inspects a newspaper printed on a large press; this press has the innovation of using continuous rolls of paper instead of individual sheets. Close by, a newsboy sells the papers from the press. A man sends a message by telegraph to a distant recipient.
Moving on through time, we see early telephone switchboard operators directing numerous calls outside a stylized city neighborhood. After passing the exterior of a movie theater we view projected scenes from movies. Next is the production of a radio show in a broadcast booth, followed by a family in their living room watching television, with shows from the 1960s seen overhead. These images all signal the rapid advances in communication in the past two centuries. |
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