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How fast technology changes

How fast technology changes

How fast technology changes

(OP)
Just curious as to how much change in technology has changed in your careers. In my case,

1st year of college- we were using slide rules

3rd year- got an HP35 calculator, very expensive, but what a time saver

4th year- used Fortran on a huge mainframe. We had to punch IBM cards, and one mistake and you threw the card away

1st computer- Apple 2E

1st job- spent 2 years on the drawing board

1st cad- Computervision, they had to build a special climate controlled room, and the computer had its own room

Now- doing 3d modeling with Solidworks

I can't believe how much things have changed, and 30 years ago I could never have envisioned what we are doing today. It seems impossible to keep up with all of it and it is hard enough to stay current in your own job.

Anyone else think the same?

RE: How fast technology changes

yes. I try to explain the changes to my kids. They give me a weird look and say ... "ya, back in the time...". Makes me feel old. But it was only 15-20 yrs ago! I started with calc, not slide rules. A lot has changed just in 10 yrs. We still have 40 yr old drafting tables in our offices for storing stuff on. New engineers don't realize what they are until we tell them.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP0.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

RE: How fast technology changes

JLWoodard - Ha. Think you are a little older than me. LOL.

Started tenth grade chemistry using slide rules.  Rich kid in class bought the first pocket calculator I ever saw.

Wrote programs in FORTRAN on IBM mainframe in college.
There was a "Star Trek" program on the mainframe written
in BASIC.  I thought it was neat that I had the program punched out on CARDS with the intent of playing the game on any mainframe computer I encountered in the future.

Introduced to desktop computers during first year of my first job.  Only had a BASIC operating system.  Printer was on silver thermal paper.

Bought first computer two years later, it was a Sinclair that had 16K of memory.  Thought at the time that I would never need more that 16K of memory because I couldn't  imagine writing a program that big. (People didn't buy software in those days.)

Bought a Radio Shack computer 5 years later with 256K of memory and TWO 5" floppy drives.  WOW! That will never be obsolete (so I thought).

Got 20 megabyte hard drive and CGA color monitor 1 year later.   "I'll never fill that hard drive up....

And 17 years later...

In this office I have five computers. The total hard drive storage is half a tera-byte.



RE: How fast technology changes

Somewhere in storage, I still have my old Mutoh drafting machine, Alvin compass set and Reform drafting pens.

My first computer with a hard drive was $3500 (the 40 MB hard drive was 800 of that.)

Today a 700MB CD-R is 25 cents, and for 800 dollars I can buy 5-250GB drives for 1,250,000 MB.

This is 31250 times more space per dollar in under 15 years.

That's an average increase of 5.7 times PER DAY.

---


On another note, a friend of mine is attending Cal Tech - and they still START YOU OUT with a SLIDE RULE.


Interesting.


Andy


RE: How fast technology changes

I saw a computer first time in my final year of engineering.  My son all of 5 years old has been using the computer for the last 3 years at home !!!

HVAC68

RE: How fast technology changes

My company bought me a new computer to be able to spearhead 3D CAD.  It was a 300mhz box with 128mb of memory, 16mb graphics card and 10gb hard drive.  This was almost $1900.  I remember the Director of Engineering saying to me, "You'll be able to do some damage with this!"

This was less than 9 years ago.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How fast technology changes

My experience is similar to rbcoulter's (I remember the Star Trek program as well)!  Within the field of my profession I have seen the advent of the visible diode laser, vertical cavity surface emitting laser, holography becoming umbiquitous (just look at a credit card), CD technology, DVD technology, gradient index optical materials, diffractive optics, MEMS, harmonic generation ...  The listing can go on and on.

Regards

RE: How fast technology changes

My first computer was a CPM-80 box that set me back $1999.  Came with 64K of DRAM; hacked the BIOS to support THREE 5.25" floppies (Yeow!!)

First PC-based computer, I bought with a $330 30MB Winchester.  Co-worker laughed at me for being so extravagant on the HD.  Said he bought two 5MB HDs and that should be good enough.  Less than 2 days later, he came back and apologized.  Apparently, he was unable to load all his floppy collection on the meager 10MB of HD.

For $330 I can now buy more than 400GB of HD.  Can't even get a 32MB jumpdrive anymore, it's sooo old.

TTFN

RE: How fast technology changes

I just received a "vendor freeby".  Usually these are samples  of parts, pens, or perhaps a calendar or cheap tape measure, all with the vendors name or logo stamped on it.  I think my latest freebie speaks loudly about technology changes-- 256mb USB 2.0 flash memory stick.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How fast technology changes

Myndex, you forget about compound interest!

A 31250-fold increase in 15 years is just under a doubling every year (99% increase annually), not a 5.7-fold increase every day.

RE: How fast technology changes

Any time you think how much technology has changed in the Y years since you got out of school in year X, just think about what the technology was in year X-Y, and you will get a glimpse of how new grads view you.

By this formula, newbies view my college experience the same way I would view someone who got their degree in the mid 50's ! Yikes! that does make me feel old.

But then again, both history and technology tend to repeat themselves. The first computers were mechanical. Today, MEMS is at the forefront of technology - mechanical gears and wheels are back!

Vacuum tubes still are around. Right now, I am staring at a CRT, and the overhead lighting is fluorescent tubes. Many clocks use VFD displays.

RE: How fast technology changes

At 28, I tend to think of myself as a kid of the computer age but even for me, its scary how technology has moved. In my first job 96/97 (pre-university) there wasn't necessarily a computer on every desk and the only internet access was in the library. Towards the end of the placement, external e-mail was just becoming available so that I could keep in touch with my colleagues from university. Now I remote access my desktop from the clients' offices 200 miles away.

RE: How fast technology changes


When I started out in 1962, like a lot of the “older guys”, I used a Staedler-Mars slide rule. Drew in ink with the same make of instruments. My first calculator was a Texas Instruments TI-40 and fortunately enough, I had gained enough experience that I didn,t blindly believe the output in the case of hitting the wrong button somewhere along the line. My fisrt home computer, actually it was for the kids, was a Commodore Vic 20 with 5k of ram.  Then I bought my first PC for doing work at home. This powerhouse was a 286 with 1 meg. of ram, a 40meg. Hard drive and the Turbo button increased the processing speed from 8Mhz to a blistering 12 Mhz.

My first cad experience was with an old CADAM system with mainframe file storage then we went to PC’s with AutoCAD.  Today, my sytem at work is a dual 3.2Ghz machine with 3Gb of ram, 63 Gb hard drive and 24” plasma screen.

Over the years, I seen some guys go by the wayside because of a reluctance to adapt to technological change but I always welcomed it and still do.

Even in communications, it’s hard to believe we managed without the internet, e-mails, PDA’s and mobile phones etc., and when I started, it was all sci-fi.

RE: How fast technology changes

This is one that I try to keep in mind.

Celullar telephones.

In ~'88 my dad got a free trial phone for his car. The phone holder and Xcever was about the size of a car battery. Niether of us even considered that the thing should be portable. (He was then the only person I knew with a cellular phone.)

By ~'92 (when I graduated from HighSchool) portable phones were more common, though now the battery and phone were approximately the same size.

In '98  (BS degree) I got my dads old motorola phone, this phone was incredible. The battery was Li-ION, and the phone itself was much smaller than the battery. I predicted that in 10years you would dial a person instead of a place.

Last summer I got my current phone. Tha battery is only around 5 credit cards thick, is actually smaller than the phone again. Now however the phone has 5MB of installed memory. Can run applications that would have choked my old '486-33mhz PC. Takes photos in VGA resolution. Works anywhere in the world. Is an alarm clock, datebook, cardfile, note recorder, 5-function calculator, uses a graphics processor that can "only" handle 16-bit color, and fits easily into the watch/zippo pocket on my Levi's. (It's also been obsolete since about 2weeks after I bought it.)

This miniturization has been a huge boon, however I think that the kids of today really got it good. Yeterday I was at a bar'b'que. There was a styrofoam model of a jet fighter with an electric motor, instead of a nitromethane glowplug motor and balsa/tissue construction.

Found the link:
http://www.modelflight.com.au/hobbyzone/f-27_striker.htm

WOW is all I can say.  

RE: How fast technology changes

1st year of college- we were using slide rules

2nd year- got an HP35 calculator, very expensive, but what a time saver

All four years- used Fortran, APL, COBOL and machine code on an IBM 1130. We had to punch IBM cards, and one mistake and you threw the card away.  Made the thing play music on an FM radio placed near the core memory.  Also wrote "Star Trek" program...I think the boxes of punch cards still reside in the attic of my parents' garage.

1st computer- Analog computer, heathkit; digital computer Altair 8080

1st job- I won't include time as a teenager and as an undergrad working in a TV repair shop...RF Engineer for a small radio group 5-years.


When I began in electronics, parts were large enough to see, color codes were big as were part numbers (6L6, 12AX7,2N2222, etc.)...oh yeah, I didn't need eyeglasses in order to see.  Now the lowly 2N2222 or equiv. is avaliable in a package about the size of a small grain of rice, it still has numbers silkscreened upon it, however a magnifier is needed to read the durned thing and I will probably be graduating to trifocals (bad pun intended) next eye exam.

I remain,

The Old Soldering Gunslinger

RE: How fast technology changes

(OP)
Do you remember what the HP35 cost? Seems to me it was $375. If so, I don't know how I ever managed to afford it while in college, but it did knock hours off of the homework.

RE: How fast technology changes

Quote:

Do you remember what the HP35 cost? Seems to me it was $375.

EGAD!  That was a third of a century ago or more!

I do remember that the calculator which fit in my (albeit oversized) shirtpocket cost me only slightly less than my first car, a 1966 Mustang Hardtop (purchased used in 1973) which got 20 MPG gasoline and 100 miles/ quart motoroil.

I still have my old Log-Log Pickett Slipstick.  From time to time I pull it out of the lap-top case and gee-whiz even a few of the Proffessors at the U of AZ.

I have no idea what ever happened to the HP-35, however I currently have a little HP 6S solar calculator in my shirt pocket for those times I need to quickly crunch a number and don't want to warm up the Dell Latitude for Excel.

I remain,

The Old Soldering Gunslinger

RE: How fast technology changes

HP35 when introduced was $495. Reduced to $395 when the HP45 was introduced.

Someone told me that HP's manufacturing cost on the HP45 was $29.

"Wildfires are dangerous, hard to control, and economically catastrophic."
"Fixed in the next release" should replace "Product First" as the PTC slogan.

Ben Loosli
CAD/CAM System Analyst
Ingersoll-Rand

RE: How fast technology changes

When I started work out of college, there were starting to be CICS (mainframe) terminals around and some accounts had rudimentary engineering programs.  The company's Chief Engineer repeatedly said "If I ever see an engineer with his hands on a keyboard I'll fire him."  He lasted till 1982 and the first deployment of IBM PC XT's (single 10 MB HD, something like 64K of ram, and a 360k floppy) then retired.

David

RE: How fast technology changes

(OP)
$495-wow. I know it was worth it. My first calculator was a Heathkit desktop unit and it only did 4 operations. The digits, whatever they used before led's, would fade out after an hour or so. I made two trips with it to the service center on Long Island and they found nothing wrong with it. Then one of the technicians plugged it into a power supply at work all day and it never faded out. We found that the line voltage fluctuations at night (it was a hot summer) were shutting it down. So I bought the HP35 as soon as it came out.

The HP doesn't work anymore but it has a place of honor on my bookshelf, next to my Accutron.

RE: How fast technology changes

How about the eraser shield, electric eraser, and all the ammonia fumes from the blue print machine!

RE: How fast technology changes

Remember sepia prints and eradicator fluid?

RE: How fast technology changes

We used to make ammonia prints onto mylar for durability.  When changes were required, nothing worked better than your eraser shield to scrape-off the text/lines from the back of the mylar.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: How fast technology changes

First position was maintaining computers and DEC VAX.  8086, 8088 and 80286's and windows 2.1.  When intel came out with the 386, we thought it was blazing fast.  Windows 3.0 came out with the first "multitasking" environment, GUI was new, that really blew our minds in hardware!

Got burnt out on computers, IT, and keeping current on the hardware/software divide, so I went back to get a degree in civil.  The days when hardware was king almost seems like neolithic times as far as technology goes.

Hey, it's Friday!  Cheers!

RE: How fast technology changes


Communications:

Today I had a request from another plant to send a picture of something we have at ours. This post came to mind again as I got out the digital camera. Marvelous...take the picture, upload it and e-mail it to the guy.

Then a better idea struck me. Take my personal cell phone, get the picture with it, and e-mail it while sitting outside in the sun for five minutes with a coffee and a smoke. So it will cost me on my phone but it was well worth it for the five minute break.

Ah yes....technology...keep it coming!

RE: How fast technology changes

Great advances, but with downsides as well:

- with more amd more ino stored on computers, theft of information (identity theft) is a major concern today.

- to safeguard information, many defense related agencies and companies have severe retrictions on digital equiment.  I cannot even carry into some buildings call phones with cameras, or even thumb drives.

If this continues, I won't be able to buy a cell phone I can use!

RE: How fast technology changes

mshimko- I know what you mean. Our sales dept upgraded all of their cells and had to get the cheapest, most rudimentary phones available cause none of the advanced phones are available w/o a camera.

(I didnt wnat a camera when I bought my current phone either, I've never been a fan of gross amounts of picture taking, and really prefer to fiddle with a manual 35mm SLR anyway.)

RE: How fast technology changes

mshimko

While I agree with you that safeguarding our info is paramount and technology in safeguarding this must advance as fast as the communications technology itself, I wonder if it is any easier to spy and glean info today as it was before wireless technology providing the safeguards are in place.

NickE

As I said, I love technological advancement, however, I too still play with a totaly manual 35mm SLR Practica which my wife bought me in 1979 in leaner times. Sentimentality too I think.

RE: How fast technology changes

(OP)
I hate these watches where you have to get out a manual to set the time twice a year. Give me a watch with hands or better yet do away with the time changes.

It's Friday and half past beer thirty. I'm outta here.

RE: How fast technology changes

In some respects, information protection is actually a lot easier now.  

You used to have so little data that the sum total was easy to find.  I've got so many CDs now that it would take hours just to find a CD that I know about.  Trying to find a particular piece of data on an arbitrary CD is well nigh impossible.

"half past beer thirty" --> 15 beers, by 18:04!!!!!! must have been a rough week

TTFN

RE: How fast technology changes

First semester at the university learned fortran, used punch cards on the main frame etc (it was transition time).
Second semester they brought in the PC's (no hard drives yet for the students). I saw others using wordstar, but I was only interested in fortan to use on matrixes. Had bought some interesting books about calcullus and matrix operations. Faced the dillema: how to put fortran on a 360K floppy and use it. Fortunately a friend of mine was doing the introduction to computer science and learned pascal. Put Turbo Pascal on the floppy and did all the Fortan stuff in Pascal.
4th semester I discovered DOS (finally I grasped this magic format command that was needed to get things running) and realized that the computer could be used for other things then only programming. I started using Wordstar. Before that 360K only existed of the OS, TP 3.01 and my programs in Turbo.
7th semester first computer 4.88 mHz, 2 floppies no HD
Now my daughter of 6, kicks alien buts in Doom 3, My son of 8 hunts mercenaries in Far Cry, when they are not killing each other in some game on the home LAN.

RE: How fast technology changes

First experience in computer assist NC programming was using Compact II and time sharing on a computer. My means of communication with the computer a 110 baud teletype with paper tape. Calculators were still very expensive and people were still using trig tables.

RE: How fast technology changes

Nobody seems to have mentioned fax and e-mail machines.

To get an urgent drawing from Johannesburg over to Europe we had to drive to the airport to put on th enext available flight - then wait 2 weeks for a reply. The enquiry went via telex.

Then faxing made things a little easier (for small drawings of course). How could things improve.

Now, living in the UK, I can do a CAD drawing, e-mail it to the other side of the world and have an answer back by the morning. (And I guess there must be interactive systems in bigger companies than ours)

Is it better? Maybe - but the world seems to expect nstant answers for everything these days - not always easy.

Lester Milton
Telford, Shropshire, UK

RE: How fast technology changes

(OP)
The good old days. Everytime you finished a project you had to run check prints and then more prints for all the other departments. Sometimes the secretary would do it but more likely the engineers had to come in Saturday mornings and run them for free. Now we can email the drawings to purchasing and let them take care of the distribution. No more ammonia, folding E size drawings, stuffing envelopes, writing addresses, getting postage.

RE: How fast technology changes

Word-processors have completely changed the way I type.  
The ability to backspace as typos occur makes me not nearly as careful about how accurate I am the first time around.  The other day I was typing something from a hard copy and tried the old-fashioned way of looking just at the copy and not at the screen...lordy.  Bad bad bad.

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

RE: How fast technology changes

Talking about computers, there are still some keys on the keyboard from the good old days.
You still remember the message "press return to continue". Yeah I know there are still people looking for that famous return key.
Does anybody know what SysRq was supposed to do?

RE: How fast technology changes

http://www.intelipedia.com/SysRq.htm

it's a direct low level interrupt to BIOS, a bit like the three fingered salute, but not as terminal (bad pun day).

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: How fast technology changes

How about 5 1/4" and 8" floppy disks. 8 bit computers. Color television. Tube technology to solid state.

Casting technology such as vacuum melted and poured super alloys with directional grain or single crystal used in jet engine hot section compressor blades.

RE: How fast technology changes

5 1/4" and 8" floppy disks...
Second semester, after vacation, I arrive at the computing center, eager to continue with this computing stuff. Made the algoritm on paper used Fortran.
Where are the punchers?
Clerk, the guy which former job was to collect the cards and feed the monster : they are gone
I need a computer
Clerk: there are new ones (8088), you need a floppy disk

2 days later I am at a bookstore that sells floppies, you don't need to purchase a package of 10

I need a floppy
Seller: which one 5 1/4 or 8"
What is the difference?
Seller: you can store more on the big one (8 inch)
Oke I will take a big one and a small one
Back at the Uni, test drive!!!
I receive a computer, I must put in the disk and turn the computer on. The 8 inch stays in my bag, looking around what others are doing.
Nothing happens, the helpfull souls around help me formatting the floppy about 10 times. Most of them are students in computer science, but when I use the word Fortran, they back-off (later I will understand that programming is the most unpopular course, something like vector mathematics x engineering).
End of story, after the 3rd time to the computing center I have a bootable disk, Turbo Pascal on it, and know how to save and print my files

RE: How fast technology changes

(OP)
First cad system was Computer Vision. They had to build a special room with controlled climate and lighting. It had a mainframe computer in another room and each person had a special workstation with video display, a graphics pad, and a separate computer for entering data. They had to have a cad manager and several operators who did nothing else. Engineers were not allowed to use the system. You were expected to describe what you wanted and the operators would make the drawings. The cad room was off limits to anyone except operators. It was difficult to communicate when you had no idea what the system could do.

Years later we wanted Pro-E but they were pushing a complete system for something like $50k a seat.

Now, I have just a plain computer and installed Solidworks myself from a cd. To me it is easier and faster to work out your ideas by yourself than to try to explain them to someone else who has no idea what you want.

RE: How fast technology changes

28.8, Ha!

try 0.11...

TTFN

RE: How fast technology changes

Yeah, I remember when 9600 baud was pretty cool.  And some people still had 300-baud modems.

And I'm not that old.

I also remember BITNET.

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

RE: How fast technology changes

There was a "Star Trek" program on the mainframe written
in BASIC.  I thought it was neat that I had the program punched out on CARDS with the intent of playing the game on any mainframe computer I encountered in the future.
***************************************************

I found a PC version of that game as I also played it at UBC and on the computer at the first job I had.  It was pretty close to what I remember.

RE: How fast technology changes

Answer: the little bits punched out of a punchcard
Question: what are anti-holes

Was in the last classyear in college to use punchcards; 2nd year we moved up to DEC teletype terminals (wow!); by 4th year we were using interactive timesharing terminals connected to an IBM360 mainframe (amazing!).  In first job had terminals with thermal paper printers on top to print what scrolled by the screen, and green phosphoresent Tektronic terminals to do graphics on (had to push a button to flash the screen to clear it before drawing the next plot, and push another button to make a copy of the screen on a thermal paper printer) - and we thought we were high tech! (just had to remember not to leave the prints out in the light or they would turn black in a couple of days).  Sheesh, I describe this stuff to my kids and they think I'm nuts - they can't remember not being connected to the Internet.

RE: How fast technology changes

I remember the dispair on the face of that nervous older student who tripped and all his 200+ cards were skating on the floor. Looked like he missed an important deadline. To make it worse, most of the punchers had defective printer lints. The ink was probably too expensive...

RE: How fast technology changes

(OP)
Speaking of the internet, before that came along we had to use a search agency, I think it was NERAC or some name like that. What you would do is call one of their experts and describe what you were looking for. A week or so later you would get a huge printout of useless hits. Then you had to call back and narrow down the search and wait for another printout. It was useless for me because I knew of certain papers on the subjects and they did not even turn up in the search. My opinion of the internet is not all that high, but at least it is much faster.

RE: How fast technology changes

9600 baud? We used to upload FEA models, via 300 baud acoustic couplers, to a bureau in Birmingham in the UK, who then ran them for us on their computer in the USA. I used to back my models up onto punched tape, which was quite funny, as it must have been a fire hazard in retrospect.

Now my basket case (400 MHz) computer at home can handle FEA models of quite reasonble size on free software, and has graphical pre and post processing instead of teletype.

Not that the accuracy of the models has improved...

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: How fast technology changes

As a chemical engineer I have similar experiences as almost all of you: a TI57, HP67, Sharp1500, Sinclair QL,atari 1040 and so on but I am not impressed so much of the speed and amount of memory increase nor of the aboundacy of software. Do not forget that a great deal of math software was created in 50`s and that big software packages for chemical engineering are based on empirical equations that you can find in some really old papers.
I would like to point to some non chem. eng. or even non technical applications: as I help to my wife who works as a translator I am really amazed with the progress on the linguistic  field: a typical application is a creation of a data base of all translations that a company has done. For each new sentence that has to be translated the program searches through the data base if it can find  an identical string of characters that has been already translated and offers it as a solution. If it is not entirely identical the program still offers it as a starting point of your translation supposing that it should be corrected.
This way the actuall amount to be translated newly reduces to 10..30% of the whole text. Now, can you imagine this system applied to the chem. eng. work? To r&d work perhaps? Or to programming work? Beyond the discussion if it is possible or not (at the time beeing):Is it good or not?
m777182

RE: How fast technology changes

(OP)
Ha! We had to read newspapers, study roadmaps, and write for literature. But then, you could go on vacation and the boss had no way of finding you.

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