Saturday, October 9, 2010
Computer History for Bill Raudabaugh
I have been using computers since I was a little kid in the 1980's. I remember the Apple computers with the large floppy disks and the green screen font on the monitors. I also remember the first PCs that I worked with in high school and the first time I used a Microsoft Word program. Although I had many experiences with computers in school, I did not have my own family computer until I was 17. My parents did not have much money, so it took a while before we actually had a computer for our family. The computer we eventually got was a Gateway. I don't remember the model, but it was a pretty good computer for it's time. It had Windows 98 and was connected to the Internet with dial up. I recall setting up my first Hotmail account on that computer, an account I still use up to this day. I used America Online on it often and would chat with my friends from out of state. I also remember installing AIM instant messenger on that computer after I no longer used AOL. My Gateway computer had a 10GB hard drive and I thought that was pretty large....now I laugh because the laptop I am now typing on is way smaller and has 160GB, and this is not even close to the max GB some computers have today. Also, my Gateway had this really nice 17 inch screen, but it was a big box monitor. Funny how those monitors are a thing of the past! I look forward to seeing my peers experiences, because I imagine theirs will be much different depending on when they first had their own computer.
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My experiences seem to parallel yours. However, my latest hard drive that I bought was a 1Tb USB drive that I can use for backing up my laptop. Are you using just your laptop for your computer? Or do you have a desktop that you also use? For either, what were your reasons for choosing to go that route? Personally, until I learned to use Google Docs and the online file storage sites in our last class, I mainly had the laptop so that I was able to make my work more portable. I still use my desktop for more memory intensive applications such as online gaming.
ReplyDeleteI still have a desktop, but I rarely use it. I just love the portability of my laptop. I am typing this right now in my living room while watching the last miner in Chile being rescued. I love the ability to have the Internet where ever I go. I also like having all of my life with me. My pictures, music and documents. Thought I know eventually I will put a lot of that stuff on the "Cloud" for now I am happy to have it all with me on my laptop.
ReplyDeleteBill---
ReplyDeleteWhen you stated that your original computer used dial-up, it struck a cord with me. I remember pushing buttons on my telephone to boot my brother off the internet when I wanted to get on the computer. I sort of want to go back and see how slow dial-up actually feels after switching to high speed. Anyway, I noticed you installed AIM on your computer at one point. My friends and I mainly used MSN messenger. Do prefer one versus the other?
I laugh when you say dial up. I too used to pick up the phone just to make the internet kick my family off. Now days, there is no way to kick someone off line.
ReplyDeleteI also remember the green screens for computer games. However, I am a bit younger so we always called it the "bad computer lab." The good computer lab was the one where we could play Oregon Trail against each other in the same lab.
Finally, I only have a laptop. However, as time as gone on, it seems to be too slow and can not handle all the pictures, music, etc I have on it. Do you keep your files on a separate drive to help make your computer last longer? I typically try to do that, but then feel disorganized having things in 3 different places.
Do you remember the cow in the gateway commercials? The box the gateway was sold in even had the cow pattern on it. I used to work in the computer department at Best Buy and I remember lugging those big monitors around. It is crazy to think how inexpensive the materials for computers have become.
ReplyDeleteThe storage of files certainly has changed. I remember our second computer having a 4GB hard drive. I laughed when they started making mp3 players with larger storage than that. Do you think that we are going to need this excessive amount of storage since there is online storage and compacting of files? I can access dropbox on my phone so it seems silly to create an enormous harddrive if we have "cloud storage".