Today I heard on the tv news that it is the 50th anniversary of the internet. Funny how we that it has always been here, but I actually remember back in the olden days when it wasn’t even a twinkle in some scientist’s eye.
In October of 1969 I was at Troy State University college and I was working in the computer department as my student job. The computer was the size of a Volkswagen Bug and we fed it cards that had space for about 100 characters on them. Needless to say getting it to do anything was slower than slow. Still, it was faster than doing it the hard way.
I guess I’m showing my age when I can remember my parents getting a Sears catalog and filling out a form, calculating the weight, and then writing a check for what we hoped was the right amount and putting in the mail. Then it might be a month before we received what they ordered. Of course, we were a military family and living in Germany at the time. Patience wasn’t just a virtue back then, it was just the way it was.Anyway, Happy Birthday, Internet. In many ways you have made life easier for people, but in others, not so much.
Bonnie Gardner, Author 