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?
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
Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP0.1 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site
RE: How fast technology changes
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
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
HVAC68
RE: How fast technology changes
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
Regards
RE: How fast technology changes
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 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
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
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
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
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:/
WOW is all I can say.
RE: How fast technology changes
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
RE: How fast technology changes
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
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
David
RE: How fast technology changes
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
RE: How fast technology changes
RE: How fast technology changes
"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
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
- 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
(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
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
It's Friday and half past beer thirty. I'm outta here.
RE: How fast technology changes
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
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
RE: How fast technology changes
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
RE: How fast technology changes
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
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
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
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
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
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
try 0.11...
TTFN
RE: How fast technology changes
And I'm not that old.
I also remember BITNET.
Hg
Eng-Tips guidelines: FAQ731-376
RE: How fast technology changes
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
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
RE: How fast technology changes
RE: How fast technology changes
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
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