Today’s video suggests two things:
1. Technology advances are astounding.
2. I may be classified, by some, as old.
In 1975 I programmed a computer to play golf, using a random number generator. The computer was in a university where I attended a summer math camp as a high schooler. The computer was the size of a living room with spinning wheels of tape. I input my data on a keyboard, which then printed a punch card. I inserted the punch card into the computer, which ran the program. It was trial and error for days as I had to correct the programming if I had a single error in the code.
I also remember reading about the Cray computer mentioned in this video and being awed by its computing power. It was around this same time that they were trying to create a computer that could win a chess match against a human Grand Master.
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It’s amazing how things have changed in the way of technology in such a short period of time. I remember having to do the codes to get things to print in bold. Now you just press a button.
In the 1980s I worked for a company that produced hard drives for consumer PCs. I worked on a team that created one of the earliest prototypes for a 100MB hard drive. As it was a prototype, it was huge, I once purchased a pair of cowboy boots and the box that they came in was smaller. I have microSD Cards that are the size of my thumbnail that can hold 1,280 times that.
Steven, my first hard drive was 40MB. My father-in-law called it “piggish” and said I would never fill it. Today, I couldn’t even install Winders on a 40MB hard drive. Today I have an array of drives that measure in terabytes. It really is mind boggling.
Everyone told us that no one would ever fill it up
I enjoyed this very much. Great History. The courthouse, where I worked in 1984, just received our first computer. It was placed in my boss’s office. He was headed out the door on vacation. He told me to lock myself in there and learn how to use it. I did and have been fascinated ever since.
I’m a member of IEEE, an international professional society. Technology for humanity is our tagline. Recently Grace Hopper, an early programmer and mathematician, was honored and was the first female awarded the International Milestone in sixty years. It will be placed in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania where she lectured about computers and COBOL
Never having been much of a techie, I found this video fascinating.
Thank you!
Thanks Steve! Fascinating post!
Blessings.
Steve, I used to operate an IBM Systems 34 computer that took up a space the size of a master bathroom. We had to wear coats while operating it because the room has to be kept cold. In contrast, the Apollo 11 astronauts used slide rules and my cellphone today has more computing power than the computer onboard the spaceships that went to the moon.