Most of you know I'm kind of a tcky guy.  I started my geek career way back in 1978 as a computer engineer working on IBM Main Frame computers and the latest thing out the Mini-Computer.  Mini coumputer back than bascically meant it didn't require its own computer room, but it still was 2' wide x 3' deep and 4' high - yup "MINI" !

Even though I understand how technology works, it still baffles me that the phone I carry today has more computer power than the computers I used to work on that took a 800 sqaure foot room kept at 68° degrees.  It neded to be that cold because the power they used would burn them up if it wasn't.

So what made me think about this today????

Well I just got a mini video cam to do a product review on and it came with a 16GB mini SD card (that's 16,000,000,000 bytes).  The card was so small I could barely hold it to put it in the camera.  This made me think back to the size of just the memory cards on the systems I used to work on.  Back then a 16Kb (yes 16,000) board was about 14" x 14".  For those of you that grew up with PC's, iPods and Smart Phones it's really hard to explain how much 16Kb of memory is.  Basically that big board you see below would hold less than ½ second of a song!

Ok, enough showing my age... back to work!

Don't worry Lucky I remember the same stuff and how the size and cost of memory boards/chips have changed. At one place I worked PC memory changed so fast we us to use the old ones to scrap our windshields (cages) when it was frosty out.

It is mind boggeling. In 2008 when purchasing a new bike due to budgeting, insurance costs, bike payments etc., I had to go for a 4 cyclinder 600 Yamaha FZ6. Keep in mind that this 600 turns a 1/4 mile faster than my 1980 Kaw Z1R 1000, and mid 80's Suz GS 1100. The top end on this thing is on par with those bikes yet weighs some 100lbs less. They even put the battery under the gas tank to optimize handling and balance. This standard can change directions even in hard lean angles. Everything about the technology on the 4 cylinder bikes of today is mind blowing compared to the technology of yester year.

Old you want to hear old.........I still remember " Slide Rules". Then pong came out and our minds were blown!

Pong is still the last game I was good at!!!!

One of my money makers in high school: Computer chip from radio shack (new tech) wired to 9 volt batt and led (also new tech) usually red or green, sometimes both. Stuff the whole lot into a Leggs Egg (remember those?) with the appropriate number of holes drilled for the led's. Great Christmas ornaments or mantel pieces. Sold like hotcakes at $5.00 a pop (my cost was about $1.00 and most of that was the chip.)

We are both old enough to appreciate how things have changed. (got my tech start in the early 70's)
Amazing is how OCR software works.
It can turn my "hen scratch" into something that can be read by anyone. LOL LOL

Lucky, I still play pong on a radio shack version I got back in 1970 something. I also remember how to read a Hollerith card, you know the old computer punch cards. Not that reading punch card is in great demand these days.

Yep, some of the old systems I worked on booted up from punch cards. I actually found a box of them in the attic when we moved. Gave 'em to my grand daughter and she took them to pre-school where they used them for arts and craft.

That was my thought as well my ex-wife worked on them and so did my mother.  But we had a desktop computer it had DOS system because mom was a computer programmer, and had to have a computer.

I remember when I was building and selling computers as a side line. The 1.2 GB hard drive came out and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it !! I was in seventh heaven....... Ain't NEVER gonna run out of space again !!!! Crap, my phone has more memory in it now !!!!!!

And Dragon....... I too remember slide rulers and pong !!! Oh, for the good ol days !!!!

Yep, drives came along pretty fast too!

1980: IBM introduces the first gigabyte hard drive. It is the size of a refrigerator, weighs about 550 pounds, and costs $40,000.

2006: Seagate releases the Barracuda 7200.10, at 750GB the largest capacity 3.5" hard drive to date.

Worked for an engineering company back in 70's and '80s.... they came to me and said they had an "opportunity" for me.... they had this new fangled thing call CAD! They was gonna train me and I would be on the "ground floor" of this revolutionary technology.... Told them I didnt want to have ANYTHING to do with them Damn computers!!! Remember when all you could get was pagers? and then when they came out with car phones? All the vehicles on the jobsite's horns would honk? i was working overseas and the quickest way to communicate was Telexes.... Now talk to daughter once a week in Japan by skype ......for Free!....Later Wooly ( thanks Lucky for making me feel REAL old!)

Hell distinctly remember encountering the epitome of technology, electronic technology anyway, the IBM 360

Rolling out yards of pin-feed computer paper on the floor to write flow charts, prior to punching stacks of cards & waiting all nite to see if the program ran

But it was great, was able to solve iterative problems without inventing some kind of clever approximation to get the 1^st guess – Could invert a 3X3 matrix without going thru a ream of paper -

 Wrote the 1^st FEA program, that I am aware of but thought a finite difference approach would be more efficient

Something that got lost, that sometimes I still miss, is analog computing – Could watch a simulation happening in real time, speed it up, slow it down, run it backwards – MTU had a hybrid that was really fun, could use the digital computer to input forcing functions to the analog & simulate way cool things like shocking a cardio vascular system

For a few months made my bread designing HVAC systems for computers that I was not allowed to be in the same room with

BUT

I kept my slide rule against the possibility some moron drops the bombs & I can still use it.

 

Remember, they said it was a weather ballon in Roswell!

  The new tech is great but. We must remember to teach our young to survive when the technology can't be used. There is a lot to be said for the pencil and paper and basic reading, writing and math. Hell, most kids now can't count back change from a cash sell without the register telling them how much to give back.

 Give me the days when I could set points with a matchbook cover and use a timing light. Telephones had a dial and hung on the wall and most people had party lines. ( now that's old) lol     Life was hard back then, but we all seemed to get along with each other much better. There was much less antidepressants sold back then.

I know I'm old and I love it!!!!

Medic
Ride Hard and Have Fun

Great post lucky !
To think in another 5 years,you can multiply that storage capacity & computing power to something smaller than what your holding on your thumb.Recently read they had created transistors down to the size of 1 atom.Incredible!!

Isn't it amazing and we seem to all take it for granted. Side note, Lucky what video cam did you get, I just ordered one. Drove me bats and took weeks of figuring out which one was the right one.

Darla, This is a helmet/handle bar cam made by Tachyon (http://www.tachyoninc.com/). Another amazing piece of technology in itself. I can hide the entire camera in a closed hand and it can record 4 hours of hi-def video completely self contained. I'll be posting a product review on it in a week or so.

My friend has one of those, it takes amazing video. He surprised me with a video from rides we went on and I never even knew he was recording it. It made me cry. You are going to have a ball with that! Speaking of video. are we limited here on many videos we can upload? I was going to load one yesterday.but am I lost? I couldn't find the load form or where to delete them either....

Never mind Lucky.... I am temporarily insane.... super sick, figured it out!

Pong

Something someone said reminds me of this ( don't want to stray to far from the subject matter) but......have you noticed when you buy something now days it comes with instructions written in... Spanish, German, Italian, Japanees, South Pacific Islander .... And finally English!
Wasn't like that in the past

And what's up with Reese's Peanut Butter cups anyway? Geeesh!!!!!!!!

Peace

Instructions? - Instructions? - Stinkin' INSTRUCTIONS!! - Lucky & I can remember when instructions came by the shelf full & nobody read them because you could never find anything