07 October 2011

Odd Moments

It struck me as odd that I am having a discussion about which is the best smart phone and provider recently.

There were neither smart phones nor multiple providers when I was born.

I can recall when a cell phone was called a car phone, because it was so huge it needed to be carried in a vehicle.  Heck, check out "Lethal Weapon", Murtagh is seen talking on a back-pack sized portable phone; state of the art Motorola in 1986!

Portable computers that fit in my pocket were science fiction.  That computer networked with computers all over the world, NOT EVEN SCIENCE FICTION!  Just as the computer revolution was not predicted by the pulp sci-fi authors, the world wide web was not predicted by their successors.

1977's Traveller from GDW had computers that weighed a POUND that acted as a terminal when linked to a larger computer via a radio link.  A TL11 device where the world of 2011 would have been called TL8.  My Droid 2 weighs about 1/3 of that.  The computing power of the super advanced personal computer from Traveller was about equal to a 1990's era PC.

The present is more advanced than my future was.
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1 comment:

  1. Andy in San Diego and Elsewhere07 October, 2011 23:02

    Firstly,NEERRRRDSSSS!

    Ok, I'm one, too and I know what TL8 and TL11 are. It's too bad our space travel isn't TL11, too.
    As Wil Wheaton says, we are truly living in the future.

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