Speed Bump by Dave Coverly for October 02, 2016

When I was a kid the only computer I saw was on Star Trek. But a least I had my own color TV to watch it on.

@bevJust so you know, I paid for it out of my own pocket. Course my boss at the Radio/TV repair shop let me have used one for cheap.

The first “computers” I ever saw were on old TV sitcoms…. usually about 6 feet tall…Of course, they were fake… wheels turned, lights flashed….printed messages popped out on little cards,or were spelled out in tiny lights.

In the mid 1960’s I was taken to see an actual computer room….those machines were even bigger…with giant reels of tape for storing data.They were apparently delicate… the whole room had to be kept quite cold.

The girls headed for secretarial school were advised that there was more of a future in training as keypunch operators. Yeah right.I kinda wish I’d gotten more interested in computers back then, though.My first one was a Commodore 128…. 20 years later.With a separate floppy disc drive, and no hard drive…Then an “IBM compatible” 386 a few years after that.

Yeah… there was a whole order to turning things on…waiting for the monitor and printer to warm up first…You could get a cup of coffee while waiting for it to boot.And no, children, I’m not 108 years old…it wasn’t that long ago.OK, maybe it was.That reminds me….Bev… do we believe that x_Tech was a “kid” when Star Trek was on?. My first color TV was around the same time… though it was made about 10 years earlier, and had several owners before me.I’m still using the 2nd one….or I would be if I watched TV instead of being glued to the computer, phone, or tablet.

OK…. so Tony is asking “How bout u?”

I think I ’bout covered that, Tony.

Gee, to get information I had to go to the library and read a book!!! Technology, is so amazing now a days that I can’t keep up with everything!!!

How about you?.Had to go all the way to the computer building, type out the punch cards and hand them to the other nerd to have the program result printed out.

I had a Timex Sinclair 1000 in 1982. I think I played games on it.

Our first computer was an Atari 800. We used a TV set for a monitor.

The bank for which Hubby worked was the first in the country to use computers. The Powers That Be weren’t impressed, so he sent somebody out to buy flashing Christmas lights – in mid-summer. They strung them behind, inside, and around the banks of computers, and then TPTB were *very*impressed.

I had to walk uphill 10 miles to school both ways. And they didn’t have personal computers back then either.

I got my first computer back in the late 80’s or early 90’s.

The place I worked would advance the money as long as you bought a computer that met their standards. It had to include a printer.

I guess having the workers with a little computer smarts was a good idea, because by the mid 90’s we had touch screen monitors in the control rooms. Pump and valve operation was all remote. That saved a lot of time and steps.

Now you wait for it to finish upgrading security downloads. Are we looking for needles or building haystacks?

My first computer was an Adam with 16K of memory and a tape drive.

The 1st computer I saw was a NewsReel at the movies. A lady was standing by it and the computer took up all the room.

i’m so old, my first computer was an abacus

We are NOT going to discuss what electronics there were/were’nt when I was a kid……back in the dark ages!

All this technology is meaningless when the power goes off…

We had WebTV in the late ’80’s before we got an actual computer….

Bought my first color TV right after getting out of the Air Force in 68. Steadily moved up to newer and better. Now with 46" HDTV. Worked with telephone company computers in the 70s, got my first home computer at the end of 79. Bought a new color TV to use as a display. I’ve been upgrading regularly ever since.