"The Book of Me, Written by You" - Technology

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations.

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

This is a journey of finding yourself and how your loved ones see you in their eyes. Further, this can be online and carried forward to share, if you wish, to future generations. - See more at: http://joannfitz.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/the-book-of-me-written-by-you-topic-1.html#sthash.2TuO2bVu.dpuf

The prompt for the week is:    

Technology

The Brief:

• What technology changes did your ancestors see?
• What technology changes have you seen?
• Did your family own one of those early changes? - such as television
• Do you like or dislike technology?
• What do you think has been the best technological change in your lifetime and historically?

My Ancestors Technology
My Great Grandparents
I know when my paternal great grandfather Adam came from Poland to the US, about 1911 or so, it was during the industrial revolution. My great grandmother Mary and grandmother Jean followed in 1920. However, during that time, Adam would have seen farming go from almost no machinery to

Sample of picture of jobs of the industrial revolution - image taken from http://www.gaumatanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/house.jpg

doing much by machine. Further, when my great grandfather's, on both sides, came to the US it was by steam engine ship and took weeks. However, by the time my great grandmother's and grandmother came to the US the ship was more industrialized and took only a few weeks.

Betamax machines (from Wikipedia)

My Grandparents
My grandparents seen more technology because of the years of innovation - this ranged from radios to phones with answering machines and black and white television. I still remember my grandmother's face when I brought a small Pac Man portable game when I went to visit her. I do remember when I would spend a few weeks with my grandmother she was confused with records (remember the 33's and 45's), answering machines. She figured if anyone wanted to talk to her they would call back, she understood records but not the record players which were used in the 1970's and 1980's. My grandmother Jean and I used to play cards or to bring something to read. I do know at one point my grandmother had a camera that when she took a picture put it on a glass plate. We know this because one of the pictures my father gave me the print of we could tell because my husband's family, which had photographers in it, took those types of pictures.

My grandmother Jean drove a car as well. My great grandfather Adam didn't as he would take the bus from New Jersey to Newburgh, New York to see my grandmother and my father. My grandmother did drive, however, it was not very fast due to her being in a serious car/train accident in the mid 1930's where she went through the windshield and almost died. She suffered until she died because she would have tiny slivers of glass her pores would spit out every now and then. I helped her get them out every time I went to her apartment. Because of that, she drove very slow and very carefully until she passed away.

Technology I've seen
1970's
When I was born, there was already black and white televisions and the telephone. I do remember the telephone party lines we had which were annoying and I didn't use the phone because of it, but I knew many people loved them. However, it wasn't until the mid 1970s my father had an answering machine. I still remember when HBO and then, later, Cinemax or cable started. I remember the turntables which had a radio in them. The radio which you could turn on the 70's disco lights and flash and dance like John Travolta. LOL.

From http://winktimber.com/photos/radios/zenith_1.jpg

1980's
Then in the early 1980's we went from black and white TV to colour TV and by mid 1980's we had an Atari game console. I loved my watch with a calculator in it. I had a bicycle that was a 10 speed, and I still remember Mom and I trying to figure out how to use an electric stove with a cleaner in it. I also had a Polaroid camera and then the rolls of film, then onto the daisy wheel film.

Atari Game picture from http://arcade-games-web.com/galleries/atari/atari_2600_5.jpg

One of the Polariod's I used to use - http://www.georges.com.au/media/catalog/product/cache/1/small_image/270x270/5e06319eda06f020e43594a9c230972d/i/m/imp600camcloseup.jpg

Daisy Wheel Negatives - https://www.flickr.com/photos/cdevers/2782581581/

By the late 1980's computers were starting and Mom went out and bought me a typewriter which had a 2 piece ribbon - black for the typing and white for backspacing and correcting the mistyped word. When I wanted a computer, my mother got me a Franklin ACE 500 which was battling Apple and IBM with the 5 1/4 floppy drive and only 8kb of RAM memory to start it. You needed to know commands to get into the programs and games. What fun! *grin* Recently I was searching for something and saw Oregon trail game and shuttered in memory because that was one of the few games I had for it. I always died in the game. I even had a few report cards which were punch cards!
 

Franklin ACE 500 computer (no monitor is shown but it had one) take from http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ace500-right.jpg

The Oregon Trail game - screen print from http://lparchive.org/Oregon-Trail-(by-Chewbot)/Update%202/13-introGame1.jpg

 1990's & beyond
Then in the 1990's, I bugged all the teachers about the Apple computers and finally they let me to a trade school for Business Computer Technology which we used adding machines and 286 computers with the monochrome screens to do things like typing and letters. It was great - I was using a computer and loved it. By the time I graduated in 1991 and started Orange County Community College, I learned how to program, use a computer to do helpful things. I couldn't get enough. This included at night when my mother wasn't at home, I found a place I could dial into and play Bulletin Board Role Playing Games.

286 Computer - image from http://ksinfos.perso.sfr.fr/Collection/computers/ibm/xt-286/Dscf3947.jpg

Late 1990's, I found myself at State University Technology at Utica Rome in Utica New York. I then learned all about the computer, telneting, FTP, and the list went on and on. Then after I met my husband online and I moved to Australia, I started to learn how to do HTML coding. Over the years, I've learned how to code in CSS and a tiny bit in Javascript and PHP. In 1996, I took my first airline flight - it just happened to be to Australia. Not the smartest thing I've ever done (first flight almost 40 hours long? Not good.), but compare that against my great grandparents and grandparents doing things by ship - WOW!

HTML sample

CSS sample

Then you have the things the computers and attachments can do today - scanning, photocopying, faxing, saving, USB sticks, USBs, idrives, and the list goes on and one. I know if my grandparents and back further could see the things we can do now - wow! They would be completely shocked and concerned about everything.

Even if you go between countries (like we do between the US and Australia), you run into huge differences. For instance, my sister came out to visit a few years ago from the US. She couldn't understand why we didn't have any toll booths but heard beeps. I showed her that the beeps were us going through the toll booths and we just pay an account. She was shocked - pleased but shocked.

  Check back for the continuation of "The Book of me, Written by You" series.