TECHNOLOGY IN MY LIFE
SO, I just barely missed being a "Baby Boomer"....I'm a little too old. But I got to thinking about technology that we use in our every day lives....My mother, born in 1917, passed several years ago. We didn't have cell phones even when she was with us. Today, she would be so amazed by them. But let me back up.
So I was born in 1945. The town I grew up in had no TV, no movie theater, it was just a little "cow poke" town in Montana. Beautiful, but nonetheless, a "cow poke" town.
I was 12 years old when we got our first television. That was about the size of a normal desktop computer screen and was only in black and white and ONE channel. Either you liked what was on or you didn't.
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| NOTICE THE RABBIT EARS? ALSO, THE ROTARY DIAL PHONE. |
Then I went away to high school and lived with some folks who didn't have a television and wouldn't have one in their home. So I really didn't watch it for the next 4 years.
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| REGAL TYPEWRITER: GOT MY FASTEST TIME ON THAT ONE!! |
Right before I graduated school, the typing lab got Selectric typewriters. They couldn't keep up with me and I hated them.
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| THE SELECTRIC |
Then one day I went for a job interview after we moved to Alaska and they had a typewriter which was kind of a cross between a computer and a typewriter and no one there knew how to use it. But I did! I got the job and loved the machine.
The next job I had I worked in a program that inherited a computer, the first one I had seen outside of our old Commodore 64 at home. The job I had was as office manager so it was up to me to learn to use the computer, the printer, etc. That was back in the days where all you saw on the screen were DOS prompts. I taught myself DOS. It got me a long way until the world got the idea that computers were not a fad, they were not going away and they were here to stay. The same with television...now we have so many channels that we couldn't possibly watch all of them even in a year!!
Essential DOS Commands and Concepts
- Backup Files
- Change the Default Drive
- CHDIR (CD) Change Directory Command
- COPY Command
- DIR (Directory) Command
- ERASE Command
- File-Naming Conventions
- FORMAT Command
- MKDIR (MD) Make Directory Command
- Rebooting the computer (Ctrl-Alt-Del)
- RENAME (REN) Command
- RMDIR (RD) Remove Directory Command
- Stop Execution (Ctrl-Break)
Then the next thing was a cell phone...a phone I could take with me in the car and call someone for help if I needed it. WOW! That was really a big thing, especially in Northern Alaska where winter is REALLY winter!!
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| A PROGRESSION OF CELL PHONES |
Now we use social media to keep in touch with people we know and those we have never met but have become friends with from all across the globe. I "talk to" and "keep up" with what my children are doing more now than ever before. I feel closer to my friends and my family though I don't see them very often. We can reach out and touch someone at the slightest touch. We can order anything our heart desires, pay for it relatively safely, and not skip a beat or leave the comfort of our bed and jammies. Not only that but we can share experiences through photographs as well. And we can send images that seemingly fly through the air and materialize in a different place....Fax machines.
Who would have thought that when we first started watching Star Trek that a lot of their fancy "accessories" would literally come to pass and we would be using something similar in our everyday lives.
A few months ago I went to visit my son and he had a new printer. It is a 3D printer. He "builds" things on this printer from a program and I have a little plastic man who sits on my dresser and holds up my cell phone overnight with one of his out-stretched hands, and it was made by my son. He make nuts and screws, and pieces for remote control cars. He makes things in different colors and sizes and shape. It's almost like the beginning of the "Beam me up, Scotty" era.
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| THREE-D PRINTER |
One evening my son took me for a ride to the store and before we left his driveway he handed me a little remote looking device. It was a "game" that we would play on the way to the store. I could "capture" a fountain on the sidewalk we drove by if no one was virtually guarding it. I would see other places on this device to capture other things. It was so much fun but in the morning the original owner had gone out in his car and captured them back! We played this game from a car that only runs on batteries.
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| THE NISSAN LEAF - ALL ELECTRIC CAR |
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| MINI SMART CAR - AREN'T THEY THE CUTEST??? |
I'm only telling you what amazes me in my own little piece of the world, because I know there are a lot more things, technologically speaking, that are used everyday that I know nothing about.
Some people feel that being "plugged in" is keeping them from really enjoying life. I have to disagree because we have the option of walking out the door anytime we want...right? But what about all those people who don't have that option for one reason or another? What about those people who are ill or infirmed? If I could go out for a 10 mile run today I'd be in my running shoes so fast your head would swim, but I can't. So I get online and check messages from family, friends, businesses, etc. I check my social media to see what's new in photos and activities and then I use my computer for my paid work and my volunteer work. I use it to find art venues to submit my art work to or activities to go to. I use it to book flights and check menus to see if my husband can eat the food at a certain restaurant.
All in all, technology has certainly brightened up my life and made it open up the whole world to me. I am so thankful for it and for my ability to at least keep up with at least some of the technology. Oh, and one of the best things is being able to take classes at home to learn just about anything I want to!!
Janie
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