How Far We’ve Come
Recently, I’ve been thinking about just how far we’ve come since I’ve been involved with computers and technology. My first computer was a Tandy TRS-80 Model 100, which was the laptop of its day. It came out in 1983, which really dates me as an individual. It had 32K ROM and came with 8, 16, 24, or 32K of RAM. It could display eight lines (yes, EIGHT!) of forty characters each. The screen had 240 x 64 reserved for “graphics,” which is less than either of my phones.
My next computer was a Commodore 64, followed by the Commodore 128. Although I knew some BASIC from the Tandy, I really learned the language inside and out on the Commodore. I also got my first hard drive, a 20MB model, for this computer. I had also used a modem on the Tandy, but the Commodore allowed me to utilize ANSI graphics and get onto bulletin board systems (BBS), which really piqued my interest about the ways in which computers connected.
From there, I moved to the IBM PC platform, and discovered the Internet. My current computer is a quad-processor machine with 2TB (terabytes) of storage and 16GB (gigabytes) of RAM. It runs four 24″ monitors on two high-end video cards. Overall, it’s pretty ridiculous.
Realistically, I probably don’t need all of that horsepower to perform my daily tasks, but think about where I started. From eight lines of text to 1920×1600 resolutions across four screens, blazingly fast Internet (comparatively, of course), color laser printers, IP telephony (notice the Vonage device on my desk), and the list goes on.
Vive la technology … may it not bite us too hard in the ass!