lol, no, we would not have considered it magical. Based on television shows like Space:1999 we fully expected to have a large moon base and ray guns by 1999. My 1985 self would have looked at the iPad and said "That's all? The battery only lasts for a few hours, it's only two-dimensional, and I can't roll it. What happened, was there a nuclear war initiated dark age?"
Nonsense. In the previous decade we had gone from the introduction of LED watches to personal computers - by 1985 we had the Apple IIE, which is a bigger leap from what was available in 1975 than the IIE to the iPad. Kubrick included iPad-like devices in 2001 because he thought we would have them. I would have been surprised to see them earlier than 1995, but 2010? Late.
Stephenson is right, but he doesn't go far enough. It's not just the big things - since 1970 the pace of progress has been slowing down across the board.
When my grandfather was born cars were so brand new they weren't mass produced - they were only toys for rich people. By the time he was my age he saw the introduction of flight, jet flight, and space flight. He saw the introduction of radio and television. He saw the first effective treatments for bacterial infections.
There hasn't been any period of time like that recently. Progress hasn't been accelerating. The reason we thought we'd have fusion power and moon bases and a cure for cancer is that's the trajectory we were on. So no, progress isn't accelerating at all. It's slowing down, and more perceptibly every day.
