Hardware, Software, Anywhere

HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, ANYWHERE (320kbs-m4a/410mb/2hrs58mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 28th May 2022

Nick Baker reflects on how the impact of technology has changed, from the dawn of language to the age of virtual reality - via a three hour showcase of archive programmes and interviews.

Hour 1: HARDWARE:

* Fry's English Delight:
Stephen Fry ponders the physicality of written language, from its earliest scrawlings to the digital age.

* The Persistence of Analogue
Tech-writer Leigh Alexander says despite the boundless conveniences of the digital world, it can sometimes feel like something's been lost in the transition to an always-on virtual society.

Hour 2: SOFTWARE

Nick revisits two of the past music software formats that used to dominate.

* The Curse of the Cassette
From 1997 - Nick Baker recalls the downside of a design classic, yet much reviled format.

* The AB of CD
From 1988 - Simon Bates looks at what the then revolutionary medium would bring to pop music and Nick meets Simon Rooks from the BBC archives.

Hour 3: ANYWHERE

Nick looks at bigger changes in our physical perceptions, and experiences a new medium – Virtual Reality, as developed in the BBC Virtual Reality hub.

* The Digital Human - Between
In addition to virtual reality, Aleks Krotoski, probes a different, more subtle way in which digital tech changes our perception of personal space.

Nick rounds off his showcase with a warning from literature, and from history.

Stephen Fry joins him to discuss the 1909 novella, 'The Machine Stops' which envisages a physical world changed, if not destroyed by technology. But what happens when that technology breaks down?

Producer: Stephen Garner

Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra and first broadcast in 2019.