Look how far we've come

[esiegel]

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first flight...in 'only' 100 years we've gone from a 12 second trip to flying planes that a twice as long as the first flight was...at speeds never imagined...carrying hundreds of passengers.

Sometimes it amazes me how fast technology evolves...let's face it, most of us have more computer power on our desks than mission control had total when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. My first laptop 10 years ago had more memory than Neil Armstrong had on the lunar module.

Now...try and tell my kids that when their new game won't run because I only have a gig of RAM.

[rocky1]

Sometimes it amazes me how fast technology evolves...let's face it, most of us have more computer power on our desks than mission control had total when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. My first laptop 10 years ago had more memory than Neil Armstrong had on the lunar module.

Now...try and tell my kids that when their new game won't run because I only have a gig of RAM.

All to true! In my former position of employment, I remember ordering our first computer for the office, as it was a newly founded company.... Had to wait on it, as the new technology was just being released and it hadn't hit the shelf yet - a 40 meg harddrive!

When we purchased the last one, I told the Board, it was almost spooky, I was looking at the specs when I set it up, and one empty program, no data entered what so ever, required more memory than the entire computer held when we made the initial purchase. That there was over 250 times as much memory in that machine, and it was 40 times as fast. Funny part was.... it cost $200 less, and had more options! And, that was in 9 years time.

The one on my desk at home now, eclipses the last office purchase five (or more) times over, in every respect, and that was only 2 years later! Again, about $200 less, with more options!

[esiegel]

My first home machine was a 286 with a full meg of ram...40meg harddrive. I couldn't afford the EGA (yes EGA not VGA) color screen so settled for Amber mono. It ran at a speedy 12mhz in the TURBO mode (remember that). Everyone wanted to know why I needed such a big machine.

I was running WordPerfect 5.0 which ate up almost 5 megabytes of my drive JUST for the program (oh no).

Now I'm running @ 2.4ghz..gig of RAM...dual flat panel monitors...surround sound...CD writer...DVD writter....Office Professional...and you know what...I can't type any faster.

Think about it!

[minstrel]

God, I'm old...

The first desktop I used (I would never have been able to afford the price myself, which at the time was more than a car) had 64K (not megs) RAM and no disk drive... it's only storage device was a cassette tape.

[Narasinha]

I still have my first PC: a Commodore VIC-20 from 1983. I haven't had it running in years. My second computer, a Commodore Amiga 500 that I bought in 1990 is still running fine with a speedy 7.14MHz CPU (about $900), 4 MB RAM, and an 80MB SCSI hard drive that cost $500 on its own! Let's not forget the Intel 14.4 external FAXmodem that cost about $160. I made my own hardware modifications (I love taking a soldering iron to w motherboard) and built my own audio digitizer for my Amiga. I still have old Amiga magazines advertising "new" 2400 baud modems for only $750. Bulletin boards and FIDOnet&8212;those were the days.

It really is amazing how far things have gone, and how the rate of advancement seems to continually accelerate. Where will we be ten years from now?

God, I'm old...

The first desktop I used (I would never have been able to afford the price myself, which at the time was more than a car) had 64K (not megs) RAM and no disk drive... it's only storage device was a cassette tape.

wasn't that the Commodore 64? i had one hooked up to my tv monitor in my room....great graphics lol

we had to take BASIC in high school.......i remember downloading 45 minutes of casset tape to view 15 second animations

then i remember when i first heard that word: "Internet" >
i thought it was a new type of hairspray :-)

DAREN
http://WebPageTurner.com

[Tel]

Oh dear how old you lot have made me feel, I had forgotten the excitement of my first Sinclair with the big lump of memory to plug in the back and how I stopped up all night writing a 10 second programme.
I feel so old I almost feel like I knew the Wright brothers.
Has any generation in history gone through such radical changes?

[esiegel]

I still have my first PC: a Commodore VIC-20 from 1983.

Forgot about my Vic-20...bought it used.
Took Basic in high school (first in the country to have its own computer...full room). Everything was stored on punch paper tape.

[rocky1]

Forgot about my Vic-20...bought it used. Took Basic in high school (first in the country to have its own computer...full room). Everything was stored on punch paper tape.

I don't think they'd even heard of computers at my high school, that was still stuff that only NASA and the Social Security Administration had back then! (As far as that goes, having just tried to find the old High School on the Net in search of my High School Transcript, to no avail, I wasn't sure they had heard of them yet, until the lady in guidance told me it was archived and she couldn't access it on her computer!)

No when I was in High School, pocket calculators were all the rage, for those affluent enough to afford them. They had all sorts of nifty functions, like adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing and coming up with a total! Price was, oh..... about 3 times what you'd pay for one these days that does everything except scratch you when you itch! As best I recall, they ran anywhere from $75 to $100 depending upon how small they were, and what limited functions they did have! And, by small, they were by no means pocket size either, (a terminology that was later coined). Of course back in those days, minimum wage was about $1.60 an hour, if my memory serves me correctly, so you had to flip a ton of burgers and live at home with mom & dad to be able to afford one! Or, the folks had to be well to do. Seems to me there were maybe a half dozen kids that had one, and they weren't allowed to use them, as it afforded them an unfair advantage! Now everyone is required to have one, and make and model is often specified, to make life easier on the teacher.

[minstrel]

wasn't that the Commodore 64?
no, actually it was a Hewlett-Packard computer - it cost $50,000 as a laboratory package with an A-D converter and lab interface...

[mikmik]

Modern pong!

http://www.liquid.se/pong.html

rocky1 wrote:
No when I was in High School, pocket calculators were all the rage, for those affluent enough to afford them.

I hear ya! The first one I saw was at Sears - $200!
Four functions, no waiting! lol

[Leisa]

My first computer experience was in the early 1980's (probably 1984) and my dad brought home some kind of Tandy keyboard thing that you plugged into the television set. I remember getting a little book with mini "programs" you could write and expand on. You could do really neat stuff like spend 4 hours typing code just to draw a little stick man on the screen.

I specifically remember one day, after several hours of typing, trying to make a sailboat. Well, about five minutes from completion, my then 2 year old little brother came up and pushed a red key (can't remember what it was) and wiped out the whole lot of it.

About two years later my dad brought home some kind of huge computer with a MONITOR! with a black and orange display. Oh, now that was cool. I would spend hours creating family newsletters in the word processing program. My favorite activity though? A game called Castle (original, no?). It was cool as hell moving that little dot (I'm sorry, adventurer) between lines (oops, castle walls) to discover new and exciting things (more dots).

Anyhow, several years after that my dad brought home a weird little gaget called a mouse (what the heck?) and I shied away from it.

Several years ago I found that old hunk-a-junk and set it up, plugged it in and turned it on. Well, attempted to turn it on. It just kinda sat there like "yeah, right" and did nothing. So, I was unable to relive my days as a little adventurer dot.

[rocky1]

I hear ya! The first one I saw was at Sears - $200! Four functions, no waiting! lol


Yeah.... but that was Canadian!

[mikmik]

rocky points out :
Yeah.... but that was Canadian!
Found this:

Units:Canadian Dollars to One U.S. Dollar
Date Range: 1971-01-01 to 2003-11-01
Last Updated: 2003-12-01 10:05 AM CT


DATE VALUE
1971-01-01 1.0118
1971-02-01 1.0075
........~~~~~~~~>>>
1973-01-01 0.9993
1973-02-01 0.9956
1973-03-01 0.9967
1973-04-01 1.0007
1973-05-01 1.0008
1973-06-01 0.9984
1973-07-01 0.9995
1973-08-01 1.0039
1973-09-01 1.0083
1973-10-01 1.0011
1973-11-01 0.9991
1973-12-01 0.9994

Here: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/EXCAUS.txt

Those were the good old days!
I remember going to the World's Fair in 1964, took my parents with - of course lol - and CDN $'s were worth more than US $'s ! I can't remember how much more as I didn't carry a lot of cash on me at the time #~:o)

(FYI now:
2003-10-01 1.3221
2003-11-01 1.3130)

[rocky1]

Holy cow! Those were the good old days. Didn't realize the value of the Canadian Dollar at that time.....

Maybe they were that spendy down home too, and I just didn't care, because I knew I wasn't going to get one!