Yes, it’s middle life for the Internet if you agree that it all began with ArpaNet in 1969. That’s when the first networked communication was sent between two computers over a longer distance. The communication was the word “LOGIN”. Unfortunately only “LO” made it before the network had a glitsch.
There’s an interesting story behind it all here if you want more details.
Having lived through most of this, including 1969, it got me thinking about other firsts.
I’ve had the benefit of entering the workforce just as the Personal Computer was introduced so there are some interesting things along my time line. So if you’d like to see what I consider some highlight memories from my life in technology, read on.
- November, 1977 – First Personal Computer – The TRS-80. 4KB of memory, black and white screen, cassette tape storage
- February, 1978 – First floppy drive – 750KB capacity – 5.25″ format – Talk about blazing speed!
- April, 1978 – Typed in first Word Processor from BYTE Magazine – Line mode only!
- May, 1978 – Wrote first application for managing a golf tournament – Had a real struggle with sorting by scores
- 1979 – First Relational Database on HP3000 at work
- 1980 – Rented 300 baud modem to do remote work on HP-3000. Only $99 per month, wow! Watching those letters slowly list across the screen from the acoustic coupler was a real rush…
- 1982 – First clone PC – Dual 5.25″ floppy’s – 64KB memory – MSDOS and CPM operating systems
- 1982 – First work with Dbase II, then Clipper
- 1983 – First Hard Drive – $300 – Used – 5MB capacity – Now I knew real speed…
- 1984 – WordPerfect rocks! Microsoft Word is a disaster to use
- 1987 – First introduction to Xenix and Informix at work
- 1990 – First Email Account at Work
- 1990 – First introduction to Unix SVR4 at work
- 1990 – First Multi-Processor Server at work
- 1991 – First Cell Phone
- 1992 – First SAN – RAID Disks at work (500MB)
- 1993 – Created first networked application using Windows 3.1
- 1993 – DOOM Game Released for the PC
- July 1994 – First Oracle DBA class
- 1995 – First home internet connectivity – DSL
- February 1995 – First T1 at work – Debated whether to register www.rolex.com since it wasn’t taken…
- May 1995 – First encountered HTML, and downloaded paid version of Netscape Navigator
- August 24, 1995 – Windows 95 released – who can forget?
- November 1995 – Bought first tickets over the Internet for 1996 Olympics in Atlanta
- 1996 – First laptop computer
- 1999 – First use of a VPN from home