on 3/21/02 9:40 AM, Laurent Daudelin at laurent_daudelin_at_fanniemae.com
wrote:
.
>
> Yep, calculator. I've got one for Sears for $10 at the time. I think I was
> starting high school and this was the first calculator available to the
> masses. I remember the picture in the catalog was totally different than
> what I got. But, heh, it worked! 4 basic functions plus %.
>
> I didn't see Mercury launches. I was way too young back then. But I remember
> quite well when Neil Armstrong made the first historic steps...
>
> And I still have over 200 vinyls, that I play on my Panasonic SL-220.
>
> Yes, those were the days... Probably the same thing will be said in 20 years
> or so, when some of us might be using the latest PDA generation and we will
> dearly remember the first time we powered off our original MessagePad and
> what was the first ever word that was successfully recognized...
>
> -Laurent.
I remember back when Walter Cronkite had a program on CBS called "The 20th
Century". One of the episodes that I best recall dealt with the future of
computers. Back then computers were fundamentally large calculators that
could also store lots of fairly straight forward data. And they were huge!
Most businesses still relied on handwritten ledgers and index cards. On that
particular episode, Cronkite suggested that by the year 2000, there would be
computers IN THE HOME (!!!!), that could perform many useful functions. I
thought that that was too good to be true. There certainly wasn't any
information that even hinted at a future where computers would fit in one's
hand! I also remember when flying meant walking up narrow, steep, roll away
steps and sitting down in a DC-3 that originally saw service in WWII! Wow!
Time to get my walker and hobble over to the ice box for some prune juice
;-)).
Dave
Dave
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