Did you think oneday we would all be driving KITT cars?

[MrSmith]

Back in the 1980's watching KNIGHT RIDER,
did you think that one day we would all be driving around in computer controlled cars like KITT?

I think was almost still a magical point for computers, seemingly computers could do anything and the future everything would have computers in it and robots and artificial intelligence controlling our lives.

In part these days we do have cars that are very much automated and computer controlled, automatic this and automatic that controlled by sensors, computers and electronics.

Maybe it wasn't really so far fetched as some might have thought?


What do you think?

[Knight Racer]

I do remember in Trust Doesn't Rust,when Karr introduced himself to Tony and the Rev as "the car of the future".I also remember in Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death,Kitt saying,"The car of the future is already here,me".Those lines stuck in my mind and I did feel one day cars would be computerized but this show was about an operative working on behalf of an agency that used state-of-the-art equipment and not a man who purchased a car from a dealership that just to happened to be a supercomputer on wheels.

[Micaela Knight]

I'm astounded at how many of the things that seemed like pure fantasy when we saw them on KR are now standard (or at least readily available) on most cars. GPS, for example... KITT could map out the quickest route to somewhere long before GPS became reality. You can even see the glimmerings of something like GM's Onstar, which can detect that your vehicle has been in a crash, and alerts someone who can call for help if you're incapacitated.

[KITTfan]

I remember I used to draw "future" cars and many of them had KITT like parts Didn't think much further how future cars would look like or what features they'd have, I was just amazed and "busy" by the cool things which 1980's had to offer, cool tv-shows like Knight Rider, cool music, movies, new electronic devices like home computers, cd-player, car phones, etc. I didn't even guess how internet would change the world starting in the 90's nor wireless cell phones, etc.

At the time Knight Rider was on tv here, we had '83 Mazda 323 Hatchback which was pretty typical 80's ordinary car. I guess the radio was the highest electronics it had, fuel was provided by carburator, even the choke was manually operated. Only things even remotely reminding KITT were the warning lights which were collected in the center of the instrument panel like KITT's switchpods in 1tv dash, remote operated trunk & fuel cap release, tan interior maybe too.
Today's Mazda 3 would've been strange sight back then.

[jup]

I, for one, was always dreaming of some of the things that we have in today's world. Which would include more complicated vehicles.

Even back in the days of Knight Rider's original airings, there truly was at least one van that could drive itself. The tech was just barely there, however. Which meant that in the course of thirty minutes, it could drive itself a whole whopping three feet. But, then, KITT was built with Foundation tech from 'tomorrow'. Which meant that the on-board RAM was a billion times stronger then consumer machines and the CPU's were far ahead of their consumer counterpart's time.

I've also come to see the real world wisdom that KR provided in episodes like Killer KITT and the one where the super nerd hacks Kitt. Because, I don't like the notion that in the near future, we may all be depending on McAfee/Norton to insure our 'cars of the future' don't go concluding that a 120 MPH trip into the nearest wall with air bags off was a good idea.