NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article
Change
Betty Davis, co-President, June 98
bdavis@ipa.net
(click to email author)


This is sort of a Thanksgiving article. This past week it dawned on me (very slowly) how lucky we are to be living in this day and age.

This is really a thrilling time for technology. I think I've seen more changes in the past 5 years than I have in the rest of my life. When I was a kid we had radios. Period. Then came television but once the technology was there it was hard to improve except for moving to color TV. But still the basic concept was the same.

But think of what has happened with computers. When I bought my first computer (used) in 1993, it was a Commodore Colt, I think it had about 25 megs of RAM and it was SLOW. I know that a few of you started when computers didn't have a hard drive so you're one up on me, but you probably can see more changes than I do.

Consider the changes. Moving to 3.5" disks, color monitors, laser jet printers, color printers, scanners, and now the ZIP disks. Then there are modems, the Internet, and more and more software of every description. And don't forget speed. As the speed has gone up, prices have come down.

Now we're getting into voice recognition systems and telephony. I saw a demonstration of that at the ACES club last month and probably by next year it should be pretty smooth.

All of these changes have spawned even more changes such as Sprint proposing an entirely new technology for sending information. From the Wall Street Journal, "Rather than use the traditional system of switching centers, Sprint's new system employs components of the Internet age -- high speed-speed switches, data-packet routers and optical fiber. It is scheduled to begin commercial operation later this year". Now that should raise a little dust in the industry. Sprint calls it's system FastBreak and I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about that in the future.

Now are these exciting times, or what?

Click here to return to top



==================================================================