Babyboomers And Technology

Fascinating, huh? See more photographs, and how it works, at The Virtual Typewriter Museum.

At some point, the push-button phone came into circulation. Boy, was I impressed! No more waiting for the wheel to come back around so you could dial the next digit.

With the push-button phones, I learned to press the keys with alternating thumbs just to see how fast I could dial. While one thumb is hitting a number, the other thumb is waiting to press the next number. Didn't even realize I was getting primed up for today's texting!

This '57 Ford is still tooling down the roads in Cuba. In my birth year, these cars put many a mile on America's highways, too.

It's hard to believe people could actually type on these things! Yet, gazillions of letters and reports were done. Have to admire the skill it took to produce a pristine copy!

I bought an electric typewriter just a year or so before I got my first computer. But, after discovering computers, I knew I'd never use it again.

Come time for a yard sale, my little typewriter was in such good shape, with its carrying case, and the instruction manual, and two new ribbon cartridges, that I got $25 for it at a yard sale.

I wonder if the lady that bought it is on the Internet, yet. I bet she is, and I bet her daughter or son or some other child adopted the typewriter and got to make some good memories with it. :)

Short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator, the ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. While not completed until the end of the World War II, the ENIAC was created to help with the war efforts against German forces...

The ENIAC is now being displayed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. [Source: ComputerHope.com]

Newer technology will replace this little staple one day. Perhaps laser pointers, maybe touch screens will be the norm, maybe even by just using our thoughts!

Wonder how many dollar bills it would take to cover the ENIAC?

Unlike lots of folks my age, I am not afraid of computers. I want to use them and learn from them and be a part of all of this growth. Even if I am, indeed, still in shock and awe about how far we've come!