Brightness from the VS, blinding light. Celestial music. We covered our eyes. When the light grew piercing enough to feel on the back of our hands it faded and was replaced by the Seneca logo. We nudged each other, lowered arms. The logo was superimposed onto an image of green grass, a cliff edge, blue skies and white clouds. There was a figure: a man standing by the edge of the cliff, arms by his sides, looking out to sea. The camera, which had approached rapidly from high above and behind the man, swooped just above the perfect grass, zoomed towards him and when it got close, circled, rose and hovered to face him.

Piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones, tousled blond hair and a cleft chin. Tall and slim, beige slacks, blue shirt, sensible brown shoes. The man was tanned and unsmiling, rugged and good-looking, ignoring the camera and even us, the viewers watching nationwide, to look up into the sky at some distant place he perhaps hoped to travel one day. We held our breath.

Welcome, a female voice-over said, to the world of Seneca, the world of the future, now. Welcome to the Buddy 3000.

We couldn’t believe it. We leant forward in our seats, jumped from the sofa, crowded the viewscreen. The man placed both hands on his hips, raised his chin. The celestial music reached a crescendo. We gasped, laughed, doubted.

A head-and-shoulders shot of Daniel Millhauser, Seneca president. We relaxed. That couldn’t have been the Buddy, we reasoned, what a terrible ad. Very confusing.

Gazing into viewscreens the world over, some strained to hear what the president was saying over loud voices of denial. Someone turned the volume up. Millhauser was sitting in an austere leather chair talking to camera. He seemed matter-of-fact, as though he were explaining the company’s financial position in the global economy via stocks and shares. He spoke of the company’s past innovations as if we didn’t know them, as if we lived on the Outer Limits; its humble beginnings as a manufacturer of calculators and digital watches; his great-grandfather Arthur Millhauser assembling circuit boards by hand until he made enough to buy his first shop; subsequent Millhausers handing the business over like a relay baton. Green-screen desktop computers, carry-alls with video streaming, 1,000 gigs of memory in your hand. The Seneca robotics division creating machines that rolled and served, machines that crawled like spiders and served, machines that eventually walked, haltingly at first and unable to climb stairs, but soon even that innovation was past memory. The Seneca Communications Robot, a crowning glory; the 500, 1000, 1250, 1500, 2000. SCRs provided as standard with every house sold, more affluent families buying another; one to take care of the kids, one for them.