Is the way to save the print journalism business really to fleece the digital savvy early adopters of the iPad? Honestly, I for one will boycott your $4.99 per copy digital version of Popular Science. I can get the print version of the mag for a buck per copy if I order a subscription.

If you think you are going to charge me over four times as much for the privilege of reading your mag on the iPad, you my friend are dead wrong. In fact, I won’t even buy your print mag. It is inexcusable to me to charge four times as much for a product in digital format that has a mere fraction of the costs associated with a print magazine. I hope that all iPad owners stay far, far away from the overpriced publications trying to put themselves back in the black on the backs of digital users alone. I hope the market bears the PopSci digital publication right off the market and sends a clear signal that we expect prices to be reasonable.

The guys over at Modern Mechanix dug up this priceless gem of a photo from the June 1970 issue of Popular Science. It showed a prototype for a newspaper facsimile printer, dubbed the “Electronic newsboy”. Toshiba described the printer as a device which could crank out one double-sided news page every six minutes and would sell for about $300 (with inflation, that would be a bit over $1600 today).

It looks a bit like a microwave oven gone berserk to me. I wonder if it printed the movie section when you pressed the popcorn button.