The low cost of technology: amazing (to me)

[vito]

I can remember when the first LED lights came out, not so long ago. Brighter and using less energy I was impressed. The first LED flashlight I bought cost me $35 and it was not all that bright and powerful. Today in Walmart, there were boxes and boxes of small LED flashlights, the kind that run on two AAA batteries, in a nice rubber-like case, for $1! Reminds me of when I paid $450 for my first digital camera. It was a Canon with 1.3 megapixels. You couldn't even give away camera today with that low a resolution. New technology and mass production, isn't it great!

 

[sheepdawg]

New technology and mass production, isn't it great!

Not in the world of Smith & Wesson.

 

[snubbyfan]

Way back when I got the silver Olympus digital camera, it cost more than both of the video cameras and the Samsung Tab4 tablet I used to take the picture.

 

[Chuck24]

My phone will do more than the computers that got our astronauts to the moon at significantly less cost. Plus it takes better pictures.

 

[CoMF]

It is indeed grand, until you come to the realization that your smartphone has more processing power than your very first computer. And then you start to feel old.

 

[Arik]

It is indeed grand, until you come to the realization that your smartphone has more processing power than your very first computer. And then you start to feel old.

My first was a Packard Bell 386, circa 1994 and this phone I'm typing on can run circles around that PC even on a dead battery.

Look how far the Internet has come. It's it's own living thing.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

My first Digital Camera was a Nikon.
It took good pictures.
But- the shutter response was so slow you really had to hold it on the target.
I took a lot of pictures of my feet!

 

[RJJ 1971]

It is indeed grand, until you come to the realization that your smartphone has more processing power than your very first computer. And then you start to feel old.

X 2.... Now I'm depressed.

 

[leswad]

It is indeed grand, until you come to the realization that your smartphone has more processing power than your very first computer. And then you start to feel old.

In the mid 90's I was in a technology class and it was stated that the computers in the cars during that time were more powerful than the computers used to take us to the moon.

 

[CoMF]

My first was a Packard Bell 386, circa 1994 and this phone I'm typing on can run circles around that PC even on a dead battery.

Same here, actually. It ran a godawful GUI shell on top of Windows 3.1, if memory serves correctly. I played the AD&D "Gold Box" games and Wizardry 7 on it.

I was going through the Google Play store not long ago and discovered there is actually a DOSBox app. Yes, a DOS emulator for Android. The biggest complaints were, understandably, trying to play DOS games without the benefit of a Bluetooth mouse or keyboard.

 

[CoMF]

In the mid 90's I was in a technology class and it was stated that the computers in the cars during that time were more powerful than the computers used to take us to the moon.

I remember my high school shop class where the instructor asked all of us whether or not our households had the internet. I was one of only three, maybe four teenagers who raised their hand. He opined that the 'net wasn't necessary for the average family and was just a passing fad, and then proceeded to condemn 1st gen Pentium processors for running "too hot" because they required a heatsink.

 

[Fishinfool]

I was in junior high when the first kid showed up in math class with an LCD calculator. Big controversy if it should be allowed, as the slide rule was considered state of the art at the time.

Now kids carry lap tops to their 4th grade classes as kids carried a pencil back in my day.

Larry

 

[Beemerguy53]

When I was a teenager, a friend of our family was a retired pharmacist who was in his 60s. (He was born around 1905 or so.) I remember "Doc" telling me that in the 40s, during the war, he bought one of the very first ball-point pens, and that it cost him $5...which was a tremendous amount of money in those days! Look what they cost now...

Over the years, I've had a succession of little, fast cars and big, fast motorcycles. In my misspent youth, I owned various British sports cars, which were so simple they bordered on being crude. In my MG Midgets, for example, you got heat in the cabin by lifting the bonnet (hood) and opening a small faucet on the back of the cylinder head, which let coolant flow into the heater core. To warm your feet, you reached under the dash, and opened two flaps. Closing those flaps sent the warm air up to the windshield to defrost it.

Now, for not much more (in equivalent dollars) than I paid for those Midgets, I drive a 2013 VW Golf R that is not only fast and loaded with features, but which is light-years ahead of those MGs in reliability and sophistication...

 

[chaparrito]

In 2012 my 25 year old 250 dollar GE range finally bit the dirt. I bought a snazzy new thousand dollar LG, figuring it would be the last stove I'd ever buy. Digital controls. Induction cooktop, convection oven. A sweetheart. It has been out of commission now 6 weeks and Home Depot's extended warranty people called yesterday and said that since they were unable to service it they were going to send me a check for my full purchase price and I could do whatever I wanted with the dead 3 year old stove.
Isn't technology wonderful?

 

[Arik]

In 2012 my 25 year old 250 dollar GE range finally bit the dirt. I bought a snazzy new thousand dollar LG, figuring it would be the last stove I'd ever buy. Digital controls. Induction cooktop, convection oven. A sweetheart. It has been out of commission now 6 weeks and Home Depot's extended warranty people called yesterday and said that since they were unable to service it they were going to send me a check for my full purchase price and I could do whatever I wanted with the dead 3 year old stove.
Isn't technology wonderful?

Yea that happens sometimes but that old stuff broke too. As a kid I remember we had 2 replaced cause something or other broke

 

[Stu1205]

And in the 60s we spent millions to develop the Fisher Space
Pen so our astronauts could write in zero gravity. The Russians
had something to use all along. It was called a pencil.
Sometimes we miss the simplicity of it all.

Stu

 

[Bat Guano]

All very nice. However, for some reason, this more bang for the buck stuff doesn't seem to extend to things like college textbooks, or...hearing aids. Curious, what?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-hunt-for-an-affordable-hearing-aid/?_r=0

 

[dougb1946]

It is indeed grand, until you come to the realization that your smartphone has more processing power than your very first computer. And then you start to feel old.

Your car has more competing power than the first space shuttles and moon landers. And no "control-Alt-Delete" buttons.

In the good old days, your self defrost fridge stopped defrosting, you bought a new timer. 4 or 5 wires, 2 screws, $10.00
Now, it's a $300 board and you order it and hope it's the right one.

 

[Ivan the Butcher]

In the '70-'71 school year, I was in 8th grade math. we were allowed to do homework on an adding machine, only if we included the paper tape. My dad had a 24 place electronic calculator (with literally wire frame read out), that didn't use paper. My math teacher didn't believe there would be such a thing as a paperless adding machine.

Mom was a mathematician in the early 1950's, her job title was "Computer"! There were great big manual calculating machines with add on electric motors, that had paper rolls about 12" wide. After someone would leave to go home fore the evening, "they" would sneek into the office and set the machine to figure Pi or some other irrational number, and leave. The machine would figure all night and print out like a teletype. In the morning the office would be waste deep in number covered printout! Mathematician pranks, who knew?

Ivan

 

[Mickey D]

I got my first Texas Instruments scientific calculator in 1972 for $600. They are now $8.97!