Another Year Flies By: A Flash Back to the Technologies of the Past

Another Year Flies By: A Flash Back to the Technologies of the Past

Isn’t it crazy how fast time begins to pass once the school year begins?  It’s not even September and there are already Halloween decorations on the shelves.  Before we know it, we will breeze through the holiday season and be ringing in the New Year.

 In honor of how fast time seems to pass us by, lets take a #FlashBack to some of the technologies of the past:

• Nintendo Game Boy:  This 8-bit handheld video game device was released in North America in August 1989.  With a small black and greenish LED screen, the Game Boy provided hours of fun for kids and had over 500 different game titles to choose from, like Tetris and Super Mario Land.

• DynaTAC 8000X:  The first handheld cell phone, nicknamed “The Brick,” measured 13 x 1.75 x 3.5 inches and weighed 28 ounces.  Not only was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X big and heavy, when it first came out 30 years ago someone paid an astonishing $3,995 to buy one.

• Xerox NoteTaker:  The Xerox NoteTaker was the first portable computer developed in Palo Alto, California, in 1978.  It fit in a case similar to a portable sewing machine and weighed 48 lbs.  The NoteTaker never entered into mass production but it strongly influenced the designs of the Osborne 1 and Compaq Portable computers.

As you can see by these three examples from the past, 30 years has done a lot for these technologies we now use every day. There is nothing like taking a trip down memory lane, to remember just how much technology has changed.  If this much has changed in 30 years, what do you think the next 30 will bring?