... they are a changin'
Let’s think back to 1972 for a second here: the year of the Watergate scandal, the independence of Bangladesh, Bloody Friday, the Munich Olympics massacre, all in the midst of the Vietnam War.
Well, that’s all well and good, but do you know what was really important about that year? Video games.
That was the year when a little game called PONG was released. What could possibly be more fun than spending hours on end manipulating a pixel back and forth across a television screen? Apparently, in 1972, no one had an answer.
From PONG-mania rose the entire video game industry, from the cumbersome consoles of the ’90s to today’s sleek, high-tech machines that, if placed in the midst of a 1972 crowd, might bring about another round of witch trials.
It is rather remarkable how every generation of technology appears so unreachable as it approaches, so ordinary a month after it debuts, and laughably obsolete as the next generation rushes in to take its place.
Case in point: About a month ago, our sophomore history class had a discussion about the pace of technological growth, specifically computers. Teacher Chris Butler showed us his old “portable” computer that had a six-inch sepia-colored screen, a fold-out keyboard, two disc drives, and about 50 pounds of hardware stuffed into the back of the case. Needless to say, it was hilarious to a crowd of 21st century students, but if you go back a few decades, you can almost imagine people of the same age staring enviously at that monstrosity through a store window.
Also during that class, we saw a graphic that demonstrated the exponential growth of computer storage, which raises some questions about the future. I mean, instead of improving the same concept for 30 years, as we’ve been doing, when is someone going to come up with a new method of dramatically efficient storage? (Would you believe hollow microscopic tubes of graphite?)
At any rate, technology is advancing inexorably, perhaps a touch dangerously. According to wikipedia, performing even the most mundane tasks on your cell phone would necessitate an apartment full of 1970s technology. Imagine the fun times that law enforcement would encounter if every hacker and criminal with enough money could carry today’s most advanced supercomputers around in a briefcase.
Oh well. Technology may bring dangers, but it also brings XBox 360s, so I’ll call it even.
“Computers in the future may weigh no more than than 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics magazine, 1949
— Andrew Lovdahl