I probably would have taken it for a draft of a magazine contents page. That would to me explain the absent page numbers. I would have assumed (because then, and now, I know little about publishing) that the play buttons, “log in”, etc. were notations for content to be added. I don’t think I would have seen the connection to computers.
Heck, I’m alive today and I don’t know now what an “erotic Bunga party” is.
I’d probably look at that image and think, “USA Today got upgraded!”
In 1985 the first Mac had already been out for a year, so I’d know about graphical UI’s even if HTML was still several years in the future. There are clearly buttons to press (“View More Stories”, “Enter Now”) so I’d assume it was a screenshot from some sort of public news kiosk.
It’s wording did prompt me to wonder if Eddie had died!
I was 4 in 1985. I think I would have looked at the pictures, maybe thought they were pretty, then go find something to play with!
I wasn’t able to read in 1985, but if I were the age I am now, I would just focus straight on the middle headline. I would have no idea for dating, but would be scared to death that something bad was about to happen to the government.
Only after I got over that would I even investigate, and it would be entirely focused on knowing when it is so I can do something about it.
In 1985 I was 9 and a space buff, so the Peep article would probably be the only thing I would be interested in reading about. The picture itself looks like it’d be a still off of a high definition (or maybe an interactive) microfiche reader.
As a Van Halen fan in 1985 I would have heard about the breakup and rumors of Sammy Hagar, the reflection would just confirm these rumors.
Everything else, from Ghadafi to the government, to Charlie Sheen would seem fairly normal. Japan would be a worry, since the 3 Mile Island thing was not too long ago and no one had a clue what was going to happen in Chernobyl next year.
There were Entertainment TV shows back then, this format is similar so I suppose I would guess it to be some sort of interactive (either TV or computer) form of one of these shows. I don’t think I would guess it to be too far into the future though.
I was in a used bookstore last week. They had an old copy of the British satire magazine Not! from 1980. And one of the first articles they had was a satire about Gaddafi.
Maybe Reagan can get some help taking care of Ghadaffi from that Hussien fellow in Iraq, he seems to be on our side.
3 N.Y. bodies aren’t missing woman
Well, at least two of them aren’t. Unless people can join together like a super Transformer.
I think that would be one of my reactions too, along with thinking EVH was dead.
I wonder how far into the future people would think it was if you removed the 1985-recognizable names and added a headline (w/pic) about President Barack Obama.
Ah, but see, you don’t know how the machine works. It obviously trolls Google Image Search for random images, and just happened to catch the cropped pic from this thread. 
It’s 1985, what’s ‘googol image search’?
I have three letters for you - BBS. BBSes were very much the social network of the day (a Facebook group was recently set up for the Winnipeg BBS community, and it was pretty much exactly like old times again, picking up where we left off 20 years ago.) Granted, in 1985 there weren’t quite as many BBSes around as there would be in 10 years (although significantliy more than there are now), but I’ve met several hard-core geeks who were BBSing back then.
And I’m very surprised that several caught the Van Halen one and didn’t overlook the obvious one - I mean 15 year old me might have noticed the Van Halen one too (I didn’t when I saw it, I only relied on the comments of others in the thread), but what jumped out at me was what was in bigger letters: “Government shutdown”? 
:eek::eek: Holy shit! WTF is happening to the government? THe US packing it up for good and the USSR is declaring victory? What the fucking fuckity fuck?? Wouild that not raise an eyebrow in 1985? (Heck, it raises eyebrows for me, but then I’m Canadian, and am not getting as much news on that (most of our news is about next month’s election.)
Well, I wrote a column for an on-line newspaper 10 years before 1985, so I’d mostly think that the color was great - not just orange like PLATO terminals, or green like my terminal at work.
I was also quite familiar with hyperlinks back then, but I’m not sure the convention that a blue colored line was a link would come through. Since I had used VCRs, I think I would get that the arrow meant play.
But mostly I’d be disappointed that it was the same old crap, with no moon colonies or flying cars.
There are clues in the left-hand column: “Dems, GOP fail to reach budget deal” and “Opinion: GOP’s gamble to slash deficit”. That would give you the gist of the story.
“Charlie Sheen to trademark 22 phrases”. You mean the guy from Red Dawn?
Hey if an actor can be the President, an actor can become a copyright lawyer.
I’m not sure what I’d make of it, but I think it would be nice if someone would give Ashley Judd a little heads up.
I think the little “play” buttons on the photos would be real fascinating. Knowing that it is from the future, I would assume those images could play like a video tape.