Monday, April 13, 2009

Windows 0.0


We have already discussed television and telephones in the good old days. Why don't we look back at the evolution of computers?

"oh boy. here she goes again."

You probably think there were no computers when I was young. But you're wrong!

"so you had computers when you were a kid? cool."

Well, no. Not when I was a kid. But by the time I was in college, the computer revolution was underway.

"god you're old"

Hey now. My college music department had a Moog synthesizer. It was the size of a 4-door Chevrolet. And my husband's roommate bought one of the first Hewlett-Packard personal calculators. He paid $400 for it.

"what? come on now"

Really. Before that, kids had to use slide rules for complicated equations.

"what if you didn't have a slide rule?"

Then you would do the math by hand. Multiplication, division, algebra -

"whoa, whoa, you're giving me a headache. what if you had to do like a square root? there's no way you can do that without a calculator."

Sure you can. There are formulas -

"spare me. how on earth did you send email?"

Oh, there was no email.

"gulp"

If you wanted to send someone a note, you wrote it on a slip of paper and passed it to them after class.

"you're kidding."

Nope. There were no computer games. No blogs. And no google. If you wanted to search for information, you had to go to the library.

"the what?"

Never mind.

"listen, i gotta go. but keep up the funny stories. you crack me up."

Do you want to hear about the video games we used to play? There was a tennis game that was lots of fun.

"no time, sorry. post it on facebook and i'll check it out later."

Ok, no problem. Remind me to tell you about the first laptops. They weighed 16 pounds and cost over $7,000.

"very funny. go take your meds."

Later, dude.

7 comments:

The Retired One said...

I know. I feel old! The first computer class was in college and it took a whole room with punch cards. I never imagined back then how quickly we would all have gadgets.
I can't imagine what there will be when my grandson is in college (he is 6 now). Technology is expanding exponentially!!
The Retirement Chronicles

Fran Hill said...

There was something in the paper yesterday about computer nostalgia, such as 'remember searching before Google?' and 'remember the no-wheel mouse?' Things change so quickly! I remember when I learned typing at college and we had a rota to 'have a turn' on the only two electric typewriters. We got our thrills easily in those days ...

Lesley said...

Retired One - Punch cards! I remember those. Who would have ever thought that you could hold a computer in your hands? LOL

Fran - There's another great blog topic! Typewriters, carbon paper, and the amazing innovation of "white-out."

Anonymous said...

I was given an old Imperial typewriter when I was 12, I had my first computer (TRS-80) in '79, we used cassette tapes to load programmes and for data storage, so I must be the young one here.

First time here, love your style, this article was so cute, I am going to link it on my blog Tomus. Hope you don't object. I'm going to follow as well, just to see how far astray you can lead me.

Thanks for the laugh and the memories.

http://netherregionoftheearthii.blogspot.com/
http://tomusarcanum.blogspot.com/
AV

Lesley said...

Argentum - Thanks so much for the follow, and for the link on your blog! That's awesome. I will lead you as far astray as I possibly can without attracting attention.

Anonymous said...

Wink - wink - nudge - nudge...

AV (is a gentleman)

Anonymous said...

Damn, meant to say I made an additonal post of my own along similar lines, but without stealing your thunder on:
http://netherregionoftheearth.blogspot.com
It's more of a personal reflections blog. Linked you there as well.

AV

Christmas contest

We're having an office decorating contest at work! With prizes! So in my usual quirky way, I'm being as competitive as possible. ...