Computer History

The year was 1994 and a young man was a senior at Middleton High School. Sitting at home was a brand new computer whose main thrill was able to navigate a solid yellow line around a square without running into a patterned yellow line that was trying to pin him in. The game was TRON and I loved it. The computer at home was also a huge asset in cranking out last minute papers for English Literature and Physics classes on the speedy dot matrix printer.

Upon leaving for college the computer stayed at home and I returned back to a life of computing at a lab or library station. During my freshman year at school there were three people who had computers in their room on my entire floor of approximately 50 people. By the end of my time at college 5 years later I lived in a house with 4 other people and 3 of us had computers. By this time it was already common to be hooked up to the Internet at home and use the computer as a resource tool for school.

The computer I had when I was finishing school drastically changed the way we operated. I was able to do so much more work because I was not restricted to the hours that a library was open, or I could take short breaks while I worked and not worry about not finding a spot when I returned. I was much more willing to do edits and change documents because it was so easy and the benefits were immediate in the quality of the work. Research was also much more available, we were no longer limited to was available in the libraries, or from the databases that were offered at campus workstations.

Beyond school work the computer and access to the Internet opened up so much content of the world. I still remember when people first began talking about Napster and being able to access so much music for free and to be able to hear artists and songs without having to purchase a CD.

We really just were amazed at how easy it was to find information on any subject you were interested in. It is hard to believe that we all take it for granted today, and it was not that long ago that I had a 15-20 minute walk to get computer access. It just makes me wonder where we'll be in another 10-15 years?