Looking back and see how technology have evolved fascinates me. When I was a kid I tried to predict the future but I could never imagine the internet or our phones that we can do everything with. I was pretty sure however that we would have flying cars, that is still remaining. It is also good to look back sometimes to see what you have now and to be able to get a hint of the future. I thought I would cover that by looking at the history of the computers I have owned and give a more personal perspective of it. Starting from the mid 80:s where I first got in contact with a computer at school.
The ABC 80, a special manufactured computer for education. It was made in Sweden by Luxor. It became rather popular due to its ”low” price, below 1000 $. 16 kB RAM and ROM, graphics 72 x 78 dots, in special setting, no colors. You used a tape recorder to save and load programs, discs were available, 5 1/4 inch. One funny thing is that there was an ABC-club in Stockholm that through a local radio channel sent out small software programs. The members just needed to record that on a cassette and load it into their computer. Pre internet?
At school we had around 20 of them in a big computer room. They hardly got used because the teachers did not know what to do with them. But our math teacher had some knowledge and showed us some Basic programming and I got all blown away. It was fascinating. I got to learn a few commands and went home to write programs on paper.
It was like:
10 FOR I= 1 TO 10
20 PRINT "Hello"
30 NEXT
The ABC 80:
Then when I was 14 years (1985) I got my first home computer as it was called. It was a Spectravideo 318 (SVI318). A computer with rubber buttons, built in joystick and 16 kB of internal memory, CPU Zilog Z80A, 3.6 MHz. We bought it in a radio shop. They had only one computer and it was this one. It was not even new, somebody had maybe traded it for a TV or something. I went into that shop for days trying it out, pressing those small rubber buttons. I begged to my Mom for a long time, said that I really needed that and it was the future, finally she said ok. We went to the radio shop and made the deal with the radio man. Do not remember the price exactly, around 200$. But we could not get it immediately since she had to go to the bank first to withdraw money. So they agreed a day when we could get it. I did not get it immediately, so frustrating. Finally when I got it I connected it to our our TV in the living room. Mom was not happy with all the cables and cassettes laying around. But I was happy and started to do my first programs.
SVI318:
Around one or two year later I got the next generation Spectravideo, the SVI 738 Xpress with built in 3 1/2 inch disk and 80 kB RAM. Same CPU as the SVI 318 . It had an operating system called MSX and it was very similar to MS-dos. A couple of small computer manufacturers got together and tried to compete with Microsofts MS-dos.
Some friends had the Commodore 64 and all the time we had arguments about what computer that was the best. I think I was a little bit jealous of all the fancy games the C64 had.
SVI738 Xpress:
A couple of years later I switched to the Atari 520 ST. A real nice computer at that time. CPU was a 8 MHz MC68000, 512 kB RAM. Built in 3 1/2 inch disk drive.
That was my first computer with a mouse! Actually I do not remember so much from how I used the Atari. It was more and more games and less programming. My interest switched from computers to other things. My friends that had the C64 now had the Amiga 500. That was a really fun gaming computer.
Atari 520ST
Looking back on this five year period I had 3 computers, that shows a little how quick things developed at that time. It did not stop there of course, Microsoft became more and more dominant with the x86 series and Macintosh released their computers. At that period, early 90:s, I sold the Atari and after that I did not have any computer until ten years later when I got my first job. I did not even own a computer when I was at the university. I never got into programming. I took another road and got a master in mechanical engineering instead. Sometimes I regret that choice because the opportunities you have today within computer science are huge.
The time after I got my first work computer I have had a couple of ordinary PC.s, both laptops and stationary. Nothing fancy and just something you needed to have. I tried to keep up with the programming but never got up and running. However, just recently I bought my first Apple, a MacBook Pro. I like it a lot, it is much more inspiring to use and I feel more creative. Now I will try to get into programming, I thought would start with Javascript.
How about the future then? The only thing I can say is that it is as unpredictable now as it was in the 80.s, maybe even more. We have blockchain technology, AI, quantum computers and a lot of other new fascinating technologies entering the stage and I would say we are just in the beginning of an interesting era.
To think now we have computers as small as a credit card with so much more power! Technology has advanced so much in the past 30 years. I'm not entirely sure where the next move is.. We are already reaching the 'fast enough for consumers' state. These next few years will be interesting.
I agree, very interesting future ahead.