Posted on 09/26/2020 7:53:05 AM PDT by sodpoodle
Digital was a great company but shortsighted. The personal computer put them out of business. They believed that large computers and mainframe systems would be around forever and the high premiums paid for their hardware and software would continue forever. They always considered the personal computer as an inferior device.
The PC commoditized computer hardware and software and a few years later, ~ early 90s, a small company could develop a server for much cheaper and at quicker time to market.
Rhetorical question: how can “computers” and all things computer change much in coming years? The industry seems to have reached a plateau with each new version device being an incremental change in speed and features. Even faster Internet speed, 4G vs 5G, is only incremental.
Some possibilities (all my opinions):
1. the user interface must improve. Typing text messages and emails into a small touch screen is painful and slow (for me).
2. desktops and laptops will be around. There are some things that can only be done on a desktop or laptop computer (that cannot be done on a large touchpad or smartphone). Maybe because of the user interface problems with small devices. See #1 above?
3. improved coverage especially in remote areas. Maybe a satellite based telecom system.
A friend of mine, another pilot who flies for United does a beautiful imitation of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice and always tells the tower when cleared “I’ll be back” plus some other goodies. I like to use my princess voice sometimes - I can do a good Julie Hagerty when needed.
Lol!
According to friends and family I have always had a Clint Eastwood sounding voice. A few years ago, I left a message on my best friend’s home phone that I suggested that he use as the machine’s recorded answer to the caller:
“I know what you’re thinking. Did the phone ring 4 times or ONLY 3? Well, in your excitment to talk to Jeff and Darlene, you probably lost track. But, since you are listening to what is known around the WHOLE WORLD as an answering machine, you’ve got to ask youself this question: ‘Do I really want to leave my name, number, and a brief message?’ Well do ya friend?”
They seemed to like it. But I don’t think they put it on the machine.
My grand son asked how much computers have improved since I started. I told him about Moore’s law and that the computers I started on had 5,000 transistors. The ones we have to day can 5,000,000,000. It is a number that I cannot imagine. Actually the computers had less then that. I do remember core memory. Just wish I had held onto one of those.
“Do new phones have cliff edge sensors in them?”
Don’t know. But if they’re taking a selfie, they should see the hole behind them. (That came out wrong, sorry)
rwood
Just checked and Bill Gates and Steven Jobs were both born in 1955. Gates will be, and Jobs would have been 65 this year if still living. Both in senior citizen territory, and many pioneers in the computer field were significantly older than those two.
I can use punch cards and am very familiar with a card sorter.
As long as you don’t want to have children.
I took a turntable to church once, and the teens gathered around. One said it was an old fashioned CD player.
There’s a nut loose behind the keyboard.
I’m almost 70 and still a leader in my IT department.
I remember my first 300 baud modem. AMAZING !!!
I sold a bunch of computers when I took one with Lotus 123 on it to an engineering firm. They were astonished.
LOVE IT!!!!!
Most elderly people have no business with computers. I am exasperated with my elderly parents and their non-stop "computer problems." Everything's a major catastrophe with them and I get panic calls all the time. "My screen is frozen, what do I do?", "I can't open my email!", "My Internet is not working", "I can't remember my password!"
Today, many job applications are screened and processed by computer to narrow the candidate pool. In the old manual typewriter days, typing students were taught to enter two spaces after a period prior to starting the next sentence. Word processing programs will auto space the text with just one space. Some of the pre-employment screening algorithms are designed to look for these extra spaces in resumes and cover letters in order to weed out older applicants.
ping and funny stories!
Just try asking an old person to play a round of Gwent. :)
My grand son asked how much computers have improved since I started. I told him about Moore’s law and that the computers I started on had 5,000 transistors. The ones we have to day can 5,000,000,000. It is a number that I cannot imagine. Actually the computers had less then that. I do remember core memory. Just wish I had held onto one of those.
WebTV was fun. I bought one in August 1996 and was on the internet for two days straight. I could not believe what was out there. Yahoo was a very ugly and primitive site back then with a deathly grey background. After a few months I bought a Compaq computer I thought was extra cool because it had a 100mb zip-drive slot in the front.
Two years later I bought one assembled for me with a 10 gigabyte IBM hard drive which was top of the line. After that I built my own, mostly with NewEgg components.
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