If you are the age of 50+, please describe how different todays technology seems to you than 30+ years ago?

Question

If you are the age of 50+, please describe how different todays technology seems to you than 30+ years ago?

Answer 1

Oh please computers and cell phones didn't exist. TV was network and not 200+ channels available. Satellites to track everything didn't exist. BIG BROTHER was still a concept in the book

1984 by George Orwell, People were more polite and helped their neighbors even before the crisis occurred. You might want to read a little history of the Technology you are referring to

Answer 2

One thing comes to mind from the early 80's.

My son , eleven years old , wanted a computer and I shook my head and told my husband , what in the world does a eleven year old do with a computer !

They went to Sears and bought a Timex Sinclair computer. The next one was a Atari " because it was faster" and again I grumbled, why does it have to be faster can't he just wait a few seconds.

Answer 3

I am moving into the seventies and I can think of my father who was born in 1907 who would have been 100 in 2007. They did not have indoor plumbing, schools only taught them to read and write.

Very few had cars, and Henry Ford was considered the start of big businesses but he really cared about his employees and established the rule. "Anyone who works for me, has to make enough money to buy what they are making" So those who make big TVs able to buy one?

So we have to remember that standard. People in foreign countries who make those clothes, electronics or automobiles could not buy them.

They ate what they grew, and canned for the winter and had storm cellars which was also, storage places, for root products. He told me he never dreamed he would own a car when he grew up and after plowing the garden behind a horse went on to learn how to drive heavy equipment and that is what he did. I remember hearing my brother would grow up to dig ditches, he did with a back hoe for a electric company and made a very good living. So things really changed for our family.

Answer 4

I am age 60.

Fast food was White Castle.

A & W Root beer came along.

When McDonalds came, you had to eat outside. I remember fries were from cutting whole, skinned, potatos.



TV was black and white, 3 channels.

Typewriters came along in schools; electric ones! Mostly IBM.

Then came word processors

Then came computers. Mine was a Commodore 64. Your screen was your tv.

Games were on cassettes.

My internet was a free service from KMart called Blue Light internet.



Houses did not have air conditioning. And neither did cars. Radio in home and car was AM.

Cars had manual steering, manual transmissions, manual brakes. No bucket seats in the front.

Seat belts did not appear for a long time.



In 30 years into the future.

Synthetic gas, made from algae.

Robots, not people, all over space

Robots in the home and business

3D printers are going to change a LOT of things. Now they are making replacement bones.

Computers, tv's and phones all in one 8-1/2 x 11 screen.

Movies will be 3d where your seat rotates around constantly. You will see all sides of what is happening.

Batman will have it's 233rd remake.

And movies that are NC17 - today, will be "G" in 30 years. Anything goes, and no one will care.

Answer 5

I'm aware that you said 30 years ago, but since I'm in my 70's I'll compare my childhood with today.



There was no TV before I was 12 years. The first TV was 9 inches, black and white, with only a few channels and programs.



We had no phone at all until I was in my teens. The phone was in the first floor hallway of our apt bldg. Us kids answered the phone, and then banged on whoever's door was getting the call. Of course, there were no cell phones, cordless phones, or any other hand held gadgets.



There was no airconditioning in homes. During the Summer we went to the movies on Sat. and watched double features, since the movie theaters were airconditioned. Also, there were no thermastats. Heat came up thru radiators; and if you lived on the top floor, as I did, often the heat did not make it up.



Few apt. buildings had elevators. You walked up and down.



There were no computers.



There were few electric gadgets of any kind. There were no microwaves.



Washing machines had wringers that you put the clothes thru. Then you hung them on a line to dry. Our line was on the roof. We had no dishwashers.



I remember the first door I came across at a store, which opened automatically.



Cars had nothing automatic. You opened them with a key. You rolled the windows down. You had no radio, no airconditioning, no automatic transmission. The good part of all that was that many men were able to take it apart, fix it themselves, and put it together again.



We had no jet planes. But that didn't bother us much, since we didn't start to go on a plane until we were grown. I went on my first plane- a prop jet, in 1957.



Most of us had never heard of a cruise ship. Cruise ships were for the very wealthy. It was a way to travel to Europe.



Our family didn't own a camera. Most pictures were taken at a photo studio. I got my first camera when I was a teen. It was big and clumbsy. It had no flash. And it took more than a week to get the film back.



And oh yes, we had typewriters. First they were manual, then years later they were electric.



People wrote letters. A long distance call was too expensive. Cell phones didn't exist. E-mail didn't exist.



There were no charge cards. We used money.



There was no GPS. We used maps.



I think I better stop now. I probably could go on forever. But I'm sure that you can imagine what it must be like to handle all the changes that have come to pass. I on the other hand can not imagine at all what you will be seeing and using 30 years from now. I'd love to stay around and see. Have a great life.

Answer 6

Some matters have not converted a lot in 30 years. Commercial air travel has gotten somewhat slower, a little less comfy, and less handy. There used to be more direct flights. You might rely on the "center seat" being empty. The meals was better. Back then, you could fly supersonic to Europe in a few hours. Land-line telephones are in regards to the identical. Of direction mobile telephones have been just about non-existent. However people expected just right sound great from their telephones. Understanding speech used to be certainly not an drawback, as it's with a marginal cellular connection. Vehicles are about the identical. There was a huge improvement in security, reliability, and effectivity between 1960 and 1980, however now not much change because. Automobiles to take people into space have, of course, simply taken a giant downward soar. Electronic sound copy has, perhaps, deteriorated due to the fact that 1981. Excessive-constancy amplifiers and loudspeakers have no longer converted much in 30 years, and back then we had the primary CDs and the primary digital recordings. The first-rate of analog recordings used to be very high. Now all people listens to compressed digitial audio on little earpods, and the sound first-class is worse.

Answer 7

As I remember 30 years ago that there was a VIC 20 and Commodore 64. I helped interface one to a "black box" at work for one of the professors. We did have portable wireless phones, no cell phones though. No computers on cars. As I remember 8 track tapes were going out, as well as Beta video tapes.



When I was 6, there will still out houses, some had televisions (black and white), and many good radio programs, such as the Breakfast Club, and Barn dance, and some drama's. Most listened to the radio and didn't watch TV. The telephone was on a party line with an operator. Homes were heated with coal and fuel oil.



So the technology didn't exist, and we didn't miss it. Everyone left their houses unlocked, and keys in their can. No one bothered them.

Answer 8

Let's see. 30 years ago "desktop" computers were just being born and were still quite expensive. It took a while for printers to catch up too so they weren't exactly handy for businesses. At work, we still used Selectric typewriters for the main builk of things but we did have Wang computers that we all had to share, plus memory was very expensive so we were discouraged from saving much onto the Wang system. Word processing was basically typing only, you couldn't do a whole lot of specialized formatting, no spell check, etc. I would think that whatever database software was pretty primitive too, not able to do functions and formulas without some very specific and advanced programming specific for that problem. Printing was still very expensive--many still used dot matrix, some printers still used those green and white striped paper with the sprockets down the sides, laser printers were way expensive. There was only very limited access to the internet, and the internet was nothing like it is today. If you wanted to post something on the internet, you had to know HTML. And there weren't that many ISPs either, mostly universities and science places used the internet. My first computered used a set of 5" floppy diskettes to boot it up with, and it's memory was really really limited, took forever (by today's standards) to do anything and they were huge and heavy too. Prior to this, computers were big monsters that only certain people were given access to; had to be kept in locked rooms with reinforced floors (because they were so heavy) and with air conditioning going because the machines generated so much heat. You have to use punch cards or some other form of getting info into the machine for it to spit out whatever it was you wanted it to do so you had to have special training to use it.



What's it going to be like in 30 years? Isn't the world supposed to end this week? Who knows what the future will be like. I doubt anyone, not even Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak or any of those guys, had any idea what their "discoveries" would lead to. I have always felt that computers are under utilized, they are capable of so so so much more but humans haven't figured out how to do it yet. And this constant obsolescence stuff is going to have to stop--some basic method of storing stuff has to be invented and settled upon so things like floppy disks where you have all your life stored doen't suddenly go extinct and you lose all your data, has to be able to stay completely private, has to be accessible and useable for a hundred years.

Answer 9

you ask two questions, one to tell you about the past, and one to predict the future. We can't predict the future, it can go both ways.



28 years ago I lived in the northwest and we were ALL using electric typewriters and the telephone and had cars with roll down windows and turned our own tv on rather than using a remote and our tv's were 21" and we didn't have one in the bedroom, and we ate meals together as a family, and we had time for each other and we used handwriting in letters we included with our Christmas cards, we said the rosary, we went to mass as a family, our parents were still married and looking toward their 50th wedding anniversary.



I arrived in the south to find ALL employers were struggling to use basic computers with large disks and only using computers for word processing (which I promptly learned how to use 7 different types). We had landline telephones. Then we learned Lotus 1,2,3



Today everything is computerized, all data is on the internet or on some program that requires the extra cost of security, our security has been undermined, ID theft abounds (even with our taxes), criminals are listed on the computer, we can't safely go shopping or our kids to school without people being shot, divorces abound, technology sells (iphones, ipads, laptops, readers, desktops) sending everything thru waves (possibly causing cancer), the world knows people personally who live on the other side of the world, food is sold back and forth from one country to another, medical records are on the internet now to be messed with, dialup is hardly used and everything has to be super fast today and because of that people are on medications and doing weird things, the eocnomy is in a shambles all over the world, too many things having built up and no answers, and countries can't afford themselves. nuclear plants out of kilter, farm lands obliterated, here 11 years of drought already, space programs bringing microbes to the earth which may not be healthy, people choosing to take a trip to the moon rather than feed their brother. It's all out of wack man.



Ok so you ask about 30 years from now. Well most if not all of the bell curve regarding senior citizens will be over. Hopefully the country's infrastructure will have been updated. Hopefully people will have learned a few things from what they just went thru and are teaching their children how to survive off the grid. Hopefully government would not have grown and they aren't in everyone's face micro managing them. The rest, well your guess is as good as mine.

Answer 10

Thirty years ago I still have a 4-party telephone line because I lived in a rural area. If something happened to the phone line we might be without service for up to 2 days until it got repaired. There was no cable TV back then and think there weren't satellite dishes either, I think we had a total of 7 TV channels to choose from, no VCRs or DVDs either, so no renting movies. We used what we had to entertain ourselves, and for me I spent a lot of free time sewing with my 1948 Pfaff sewing machine & doing handicrafts especially during the cold winter months if I got snowed in from the bad weather. I checked out books from the local library & they had a mail-a-book program so when I had no car I could get books sent to me, and return them in the same envelope. I had a subscription to the local newspaper and kept up with local news that way. Now compare the phones, for inside the home cordless phones with voice mail and answering machines, or use a cell phone. I have cable TV with many useless channels showing reality TV shows one after another, there were actually a lot of good movies (not repetitive like today) on a few channels back then. I can check out a DVD at the library for free (4 at a time) or go online and get them sent to my TV or computer through Netflix now. I can use my computer to read online news both locally & around the world. I still get a newspaper through a subscription because of coupons and sales papers, although I can also get some coupons online & print them off or check the sales at most of the stores online. I still do a few crafts but not nearly as much, and the local county fair craft exhibits have dwindled to half. I still use my old heavy sewing machine but get craft ideas off the internet.

Answer 11

For me it would be about 40+ yrs ago. Boy, how time flies lol.



No computers - used a wringer washer - still used cloth diapers - used perculators to make coffee - telephone was black with rotary dial - used space heater - no cell phone - manual typewriter - did not have cds or dvds - movies were on vhs - no digital tape recorders - used a machine with cassette tape -



probaly more - that's all for now :D



Don't know about the future - they are always "improving" and making new changes

Answer 12

I learned how to type via a manual typewriter. If you needed multiple copies, carbon paper was placed inbetween. If I remember correctly, there were mimeograph machines.



Using Write-Out. Now just hit your "delete" key.



Xerox machines turned into Copier machines.



I.e., twin-lens cameras and Instamatic cameras with flashbulbs, turned into Digitals (yaaay!). Any photo you don't want? Just hit "Delete."



Turntables/phonographs turned into Walkman Cassette/CD players



Black and White TVs with Rabbit ears, knobs, consoles, and (depending on region) there were local tv channels only. Then we evolved into color, no remote yet.



Bulky TV monitors evolved into Flat Screens



Cable, then satellite. Somewhere along the line, remotes were added.



78's and '45's. 45's evolved into 8-track cassettes, which evolved into cassettes, then CD's, now downloads, i.e. ITunes.



Transister radios into Boom Boxes, into (some) IPods w/FM.



Writing letters/sending w/stamps into "free" Email.



Thick medical needles I remember as a child, into needles so thin you hardly feel them.



Going to the bank making a deposit/withdrawal, into visiting your local ATM, or banking online.



Books evolving into E-books/E-readers



Bulky computer monitors evolved into Flat Screens.



DOS (either amber, or green letters against black background) evolved into Windows/mouse.



Analog clocks/watches/tv's evolved into digital.



Maps evolved into GPS (but I still drive with a map in my car as backup).