History...
Mar. 17th, 2005 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrWhile reading someone else's LJ, a comment of theirs got me to thinking.
I've been on the Internet for around 20 years. And, if I recall correctly, it was in March of 1981 that I got my first modem. (I still have one of the same model, simply for the sake of boggling newbies).
So I've been online for 24 years.
I want you to try to picture this. My system had cost $1000 *before* adding things like extra RAM, a serial port and a modem (and a serial port wasn't standard then!).
It was a TRS-80 Model III. Z-80 CPU at 2(?) MHz. 16k of RAM (which I expanded to the max of 48k as soon as I could). Yes *k*, not meg.
Storage was cassette tapes at 1500 baud. The display was monochrome with 16 lines of 64 characters. Graphics resolution was 128x48.
When I went online, there were two BBS systems in Portland. I got their numbers from Byte magazine. The *national* BBS list took up only one page. And the print wasn't super small.
The modem was 300 baud. I had to dial the phone, and when I heard the modem on the other end answer, flip the toggle switch on the modem from Off to Originate.
I want you youngsters to try to imagine when that was state of the art in home computers...
I got onto CompuServe a bit later and stayed on it until 1994 or so.
I got onto the Internet sometime around 1985.
I have to wonder what it'll be like in another 20 years?
I've been on the Internet for around 20 years. And, if I recall correctly, it was in March of 1981 that I got my first modem. (I still have one of the same model, simply for the sake of boggling newbies).
So I've been online for 24 years.
I want you to try to picture this. My system had cost $1000 *before* adding things like extra RAM, a serial port and a modem (and a serial port wasn't standard then!).
It was a TRS-80 Model III. Z-80 CPU at 2(?) MHz. 16k of RAM (which I expanded to the max of 48k as soon as I could). Yes *k*, not meg.
Storage was cassette tapes at 1500 baud. The display was monochrome with 16 lines of 64 characters. Graphics resolution was 128x48.
When I went online, there were two BBS systems in Portland. I got their numbers from Byte magazine. The *national* BBS list took up only one page. And the print wasn't super small.
The modem was 300 baud. I had to dial the phone, and when I heard the modem on the other end answer, flip the toggle switch on the modem from Off to Originate.
I want you youngsters to try to imagine when that was state of the art in home computers...
I got onto CompuServe a bit later and stayed on it until 1994 or so.
I got onto the Internet sometime around 1985.
I have to wonder what it'll be like in another 20 years?
