Saturday, September 20, 2008

Computer Technology




I am amazed how far computer technology has progressed in the last 30 to 40 years.


My first experience with computers was as a student employee at Ohio State's Health Sciences Library. In 1970 all library employees attended an instructional workshop to learn to use the new Library Circulation System (LCS). I remember in order to do an author/title search, you had to key in the first four letters of the author's last name and the first five letters of the first significant word in the title. There were many rules simply to perform a single query. But that was high living back then.


My first computer was an IBM PCjr. and it had 128K RAM and you made use of floppy disks. Here is a link listing its specifications http://www.brutman.com/PCjr/pcjr_hardware.html. The PCjr is also celebrating its 25th anniversary. It was amazing how much you could do with 128K. I eventually purchased my new computer which was 640K. How did I manage with only 128K-- will the wonders of modern science never cease.


Now you can get computers with 320GB hard drives and even higher. You can store your family photos, movies, music, etc... all on one computer and still have room for other things. If you use all of your space, you can upgrade or purchase an external hard drive. (I just saw an external hard drive with 1 terabyte (equals 1,000 GBs) hard drive and it was not terribly expensive.) You can even store certain items on someone else's computer. It truly is amazing how far we have advanced.

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