Technology Now vs Then
Life has had many mysteries such as what came first; the chicken or the egg. However,
Some mysteries are easy to solve, such as; the abacus came before the mainframe computer.
Technology has evolved through leaps & bounds, and while some people argue that technology
has made life more complex and stressful; others argue that it has made life more convenient and
easy. Over the next few pages, several points will be highlighted to pinpoint the trends of
society technological evolutions. Some of the advancements which will be highlighted are
computers, cell phones and video game consoles. So let’s look at how the computers we know
today have evolved to what we accept as a societal norm within the home and work
environments.
The first generation of computers was from 1940’s and were powered by vacuum tubes,
used magnetic drums to store data & memory, and required a rather large manpower pool to
conduct updates/changes. In fact, yesteryears computers were so large that they occupied rooms
the size of a small building and took more than 24 hours of maintenance time to conduct updates.
Additionally, these computers generated a great deal of heat, consumed rather large amounts of
electricity, usually requiring their own power grids; and, tended to generate extensively large
amounts of waste and environmental hazards.
In comparison, 40 years later in 1984, Apple introduced its first home computer for the
first time user. The computer was known as the Apple Macintosh Microprocessor. It had
incredible processing speed for the era, increased accuracy, and the reliability of the computer
was improved and far more cheaper than all the previous computer models. Additionally, the
system introduced the intranet networking of the mouse, mainframe and keyboard all capable of
fitting on a student’s desk. Computers began to take up new roles in various forms and in the
early 1990’s, people were able to use the internet in their
Some mysteries are easy to solve, such as; the abacus came before the mainframe computer.
Technology has evolved through leaps & bounds, and while some people argue that technology
has made life more complex and stressful; others argue that it has made life more convenient and
easy. Over the next few pages, several points will be highlighted to pinpoint the trends of
society technological evolutions. Some of the advancements which will be highlighted are
computers, cell phones and video game consoles. So let’s look at how the computers we know
today have evolved to what we accept as a societal norm within the home and work
environments.
The first generation of computers was from 1940’s and were powered by vacuum tubes,
used magnetic drums to store data & memory, and required a rather large manpower pool to
conduct updates/changes. In fact, yesteryears computers were so large that they occupied rooms
the size of a small building and took more than 24 hours of maintenance time to conduct updates.
Additionally, these computers generated a great deal of heat, consumed rather large amounts of
electricity, usually requiring their own power grids; and, tended to generate extensively large
amounts of waste and environmental hazards.
In comparison, 40 years later in 1984, Apple introduced its first home computer for the
first time user. The computer was known as the Apple Macintosh Microprocessor. It had
incredible processing speed for the era, increased accuracy, and the reliability of the computer
was improved and far more cheaper than all the previous computer models. Additionally, the
system introduced the intranet networking of the mouse, mainframe and keyboard all capable of
fitting on a student’s desk. Computers began to take up new roles in various forms and in the
early 1990’s, people were able to use the internet in their