Memory Lane, Dave! Do you remember in college, I got an used Mac from my cousin with a printer? I would type up class notes and sell them to other ministry students at about 25 cents a page; I made a lot of $$ off Mickey Watkins and a few others when exams and tests rolled around. HAHA! That was 1991-1992, and I don't know that I'm a native but I definitely benefitted as an early adopter. Looking forward to your next article.
As I read this, a realize the passion for technology my dad Ed Bailey, instilled in us kids - starting with his tale of having built the first crystal radio in his neighborhood a teenager. We grew up with our family events like Christmas and birthdays being recorded on small machines - with dad buying the new '4-atrack' Ampex (?) Reel to Reel as soon as it became available. 😁 He also recorded mom's home town church bells, build a steeple for our church, and fitted it with a loudspeaker to call folks to worship (circa 1968) on Sunday morning. Great memories!
Excellent Act 1. My first experience as an 11 year old was with the Apple IIe my parents bought. I learned BASIC and read books that included code. I painstakingly typed it in to see what it would do.
At the same university, I purchased my first computer in Fall 1994. A beloved Gateway 2000 tower 486 with a 400 MB hard drive, smallish color monitor, and color inkjet printer. Cost me $2700 of my own money (close to $5800 in today's dollars).
I believe both helped me launch into a six year IT career in addition to my current interest with tech.
1. What impressed me with the first company I worked at was that the organization had IBM Selectric Typewriters. Very advanced in my view and showed that the organization was thinking ahead. It was one of the factors in why I started working there.
2. My first computer there was also a TRS 80. Don't remember the year but it was early and it saved me a lot of time by previous standards. Felt so ahead of the times using that! Seems to me then moved to an IBM laptop
That brings back some memories. I was in tech support at a company called DayTimers and my job was to bring support to those who were using PC's within the company. WordPerfect and Lotus 123 was the software of choice there, until Window 3.1 came about. Our Windows Suite of choice was from Lotus (AmiPro - for wordprocessing, 123 for spreadsheets, and don't remember the database software)
During our first furlough I took a computer course from the local technical college. The teacher assured us that there would only be three practical uses for personal computers - word processing, spreadsheets, and databases. Furthermore, he declared, three companies had cornered the market for the programs and if we mastered them it would be all we would ever need - Word Perfect, Lotus 123, and Dbase.
I love how most nobody reading this knows those companies that had "cornered the market".... HA!
Of course I do... once Lotus and WordPerfect came around it changed everything. I happen to think that Word Perfect was actually superior to Word in many ways when they were competing--as do many... but they lost the war.
In the late ‘80s, we started migrating from “snap out” memos via fax, to emails. My user name at CIGNA was OXHAED. Hahaha.
I was an early adopter of the iPhone. I had a buddy who thought I was crazy. The iPhone will NEVER replace the Keyboard in the BlackBerry!!! We laugh about it still.
I always purchased music, it seemed to me evil to download it for free. Now it’s on Apple Music, all music. No more vinyl records, where you looked at the cover all the time.
The Kindle was good, but I used to read a LOT more when I had to carry along whatever I was reading. Finishing a good book felt like saying good bye for now to an old friend. No such feeling or connectedness with Kindle or an audio book.
what fun stories! love that you remember your CIGNA user name! lol!
I do love the streaming of music--but regret having bought several albums as records, then cassettes, and then CDs... only to now have any yahoo access the same stuff on spotify and apple ;-)
Memory Lane, Dave! Do you remember in college, I got an used Mac from my cousin with a printer? I would type up class notes and sell them to other ministry students at about 25 cents a page; I made a lot of $$ off Mickey Watkins and a few others when exams and tests rolled around. HAHA! That was 1991-1992, and I don't know that I'm a native but I definitely benefitted as an early adopter. Looking forward to your next article.
great story, Ken!!! love that you were cashing in on the scarcity! hahaha!
As I read this, a realize the passion for technology my dad Ed Bailey, instilled in us kids - starting with his tale of having built the first crystal radio in his neighborhood a teenager. We grew up with our family events like Christmas and birthdays being recorded on small machines - with dad buying the new '4-atrack' Ampex (?) Reel to Reel as soon as it became available. 😁 He also recorded mom's home town church bells, build a steeple for our church, and fitted it with a loudspeaker to call folks to worship (circa 1968) on Sunday morning. Great memories!
Enjoy your stories David! Thank you ...
Love hearing this, Jon! Wow the reel to reel--old school!
Excellent Act 1. My first experience as an 11 year old was with the Apple IIe my parents bought. I learned BASIC and read books that included code. I painstakingly typed it in to see what it would do.
At the same university, I purchased my first computer in Fall 1994. A beloved Gateway 2000 tower 486 with a 400 MB hard drive, smallish color monitor, and color inkjet printer. Cost me $2700 of my own money (close to $5800 in today's dollars).
I believe both helped me launch into a six year IT career in addition to my current interest with tech.
Sidenote: My first Amazon purchase was late 2003. I bought a Compaq ipaq (PDA) and additional slot memory card and additional wifi slot card.
No way! Fun
Whoah! Nice gateway story—they were the BEST
Two things jump out to me reading your post.
1. What impressed me with the first company I worked at was that the organization had IBM Selectric Typewriters. Very advanced in my view and showed that the organization was thinking ahead. It was one of the factors in why I started working there.
2. My first computer there was also a TRS 80. Don't remember the year but it was early and it saved me a lot of time by previous standards. Felt so ahead of the times using that! Seems to me then moved to an IBM laptop
the Selectric! ;-). So you had the same transition as us...TRS 80 to IBM
That brings back some memories. I was in tech support at a company called DayTimers and my job was to bring support to those who were using PC's within the company. WordPerfect and Lotus 123 was the software of choice there, until Window 3.1 came about. Our Windows Suite of choice was from Lotus (AmiPro - for wordprocessing, 123 for spreadsheets, and don't remember the database software)
yeah for sure--Lotus and WordPerfect were IT back then!
During our first furlough I took a computer course from the local technical college. The teacher assured us that there would only be three practical uses for personal computers - word processing, spreadsheets, and databases. Furthermore, he declared, three companies had cornered the market for the programs and if we mastered them it would be all we would ever need - Word Perfect, Lotus 123, and Dbase.
I love how most nobody reading this knows those companies that had "cornered the market".... HA!
Of course I do... once Lotus and WordPerfect came around it changed everything. I happen to think that Word Perfect was actually superior to Word in many ways when they were competing--as do many... but they lost the war.
In the late ‘80s, we started migrating from “snap out” memos via fax, to emails. My user name at CIGNA was OXHAED. Hahaha.
I was an early adopter of the iPhone. I had a buddy who thought I was crazy. The iPhone will NEVER replace the Keyboard in the BlackBerry!!! We laugh about it still.
I always purchased music, it seemed to me evil to download it for free. Now it’s on Apple Music, all music. No more vinyl records, where you looked at the cover all the time.
The Kindle was good, but I used to read a LOT more when I had to carry along whatever I was reading. Finishing a good book felt like saying good bye for now to an old friend. No such feeling or connectedness with Kindle or an audio book.
what fun stories! love that you remember your CIGNA user name! lol!
I do love the streaming of music--but regret having bought several albums as records, then cassettes, and then CDs... only to now have any yahoo access the same stuff on spotify and apple ;-)
Same with charging cables, lighting, then USB, then USB-C; and they each use something different!!!! UGH.
Oh, and the Tower in the living room with all the DVD's. Hahahahaha
love it! memories!