Technology timeline
From Derek
When archeologists in 1000 years time look back at today's technology and want to state the year people started using microwave ovens, flat screens or memory sticks, for example, how difficult will it be for them to do this?
Therefore to help them out, this page is my personal technology timeline. It gives the years that I remember either personally using, seeing, or buying a piece of technology. As you will see, in some cases I was a late adopter and some cases an earlier adopter. Therefore this list will a least give future researchers some idea of the maximum year they can assign to a technology.
- 1960 I first touched an electric plug
- 1961 I first traveled on an ocean cruiser
- 1963 I first traveled on an airplane
- 1964 I saw a typewriter for the first time
- 1964 I touched a camera for the first time (a Voightlander)
- 1965 I touched an electric torch (flashlight) for the first time
- 1965 I first used an electric toaster
- 1965 I first wired an electric plug
- 1965 I first touched a transistor radio
- 1965 I first touched a black and white television
- 1965 I saw vacuum valves for the first time
- 1965 I experienced my first electric shock when playing with electricity
- 1965 I lit a match for the first time
- 1965 I used an alarm clock for the first time
- 1965 I used a typewriter for the first time
- 1966 I received my first battery-operated toy car
- 1966 I saw a reel-to-reel tape recorder for the first time
- 1966 I used a vinyl record player for the first time
- 1966 I first used a soldering iron
- 1968 I saw an electric cattle fence for the first time
- 1969 I used a slide rule for the first time
- 1971 I had my first 126 format camera, with magnesium flashbulbs
- 1972 I purchased my own Liebig condenser
- 1972 I purchased my first cassette recorder (BASF)
- 1973 I saw a pocket calculator for the first time (it was a Sinclair, and I hated the reverse Polish)
- 1974 I purchased my first Texas Instruments calculator
- 1974 I used a teletype terminal with tickertape storage for the first time
- 1974 I first started writing my own computer programs in BASIC
- 1975 I used an alcohol-based Banda copying machine for the first time
- 1976 I purchased my first SLR camera (Pentax), with external electronic flash
- 1977 I first used infrared film in my camera
- 1977 I used a photocopier for the first time
- 1977 I saw an LED wrist watch for the first time
- 1977 I touched a MOSFET for the first time
- 1977 I touched a CCD for the first time
- 1977 I saw one and two inch silicon wafers for the first time
- 1977 I saw a semiconductor clean room for the first time
- 1978 I started programming in Fortran using punched card storage
- 1979 I bought my first pocket calculator with scientific functions (Casio)
- 1980 I first started using a VMS operating system on a VAX
- 1982 I used a desktop computer for the first time (it was called a DAI, with 16K RAM) - in those days we said "microcomputer" not "personal computer"
- 1982 I used CAD tools for the first time (Solartron-Schlumberger)
- 1982 I bought my first car
- 1983 I started using BBC Microcomputers
- 1984 I purchased my first hand-held Nintendo Donkey Kong game
- 1986 I purchased my first microwave oven
- 1986 I used a supermarket with a barcode check-out for the first time.
- 1986 I purchased my first colour TV
- 1986 I sent my first ever email
- 1986 I first started using the UNIX operating system
- 1986 I used a laser printer for the first time
- 1986 I used my first Sun Microsystems terminal
- 1987 I programmed my first Z80
- 1987 I first started using internet newsgroups using "rn"
- 1987 I first started using LaTeX
- 1987 I first started using Matlab
- 1987 I first touched MS-DOS, Microsoft, and Apple products (though remained a hardcore Unix guy)
- 1988 I bought my first Commodore 64
- 1995 I started using the Excite search engine (this was my favourite search engine in pre-Google days)
- 1999 I first started using Google
- 2000 I sadly ditched my Sun Microsystems workstation and totally went PC with Microsoft
- 2001 Started purchasing flat screen monitors, and gradually threw out all my CRT computer screens.
- 2003 First time I saw a Wikipedia page
- 2003 Bought my first USB memory stick
- 2005 Emailed a 35.9 MB attachment and got away with it
- 2006 First time I used wiki markup language
- 2007 Large email attachments became reliable enough that I stopped using USB sticks everyday
- 2007 I happily ditched all my PCs and went MAC OSX
- 2007 First started using OCR on flatbed scanner
- 2007 I bought my first MacAir laptop
- 2007 I saw an iPhone for the first time
- 2007 On October 20th, I finally succumbed and joined FaceBook
- 2007 Wifi became reliable and fast enough that I began using it everyday like oxygen
- 2008 Replaced my tungsten bulbs at home with compact fluorescent bulbs
- 2008 I used an iPhone for the first time
- 2008 Purchased my first flat screen TV
- 2009 Uploaded a video to YouTube for the first time
- 2009 Used GPS for the first time
- 2009 Last time I burned a CD
- 2010 I used wifi for the first time on a flight
- 2010 I touched an iPad for the first time
- 2010 First time I scanned a barcode with my iPhone
- 2010 My last ever FAX I sent. Scanned email attachments became dominant.
- 2011 My first flight without a paper boarding pass, but a barcode sent to my iPhone.
- 2011 Purchased my first GPS
- 2011 Got Siri to perfectly recognize my voice with "Mary had a little lamb..."
- 2011 I stopped proof reading paper printouts, and instead began annotating pdf files in Acrobat
- 2012 First time I started electronically signing pdf documents
- 2012 My first dishwasher (I was a very late adopter!)
- 2012 First time I saw a QR code in a newspaper advertisement and scanned it with my iPhone
- 2012 First started using OCR function on a photocopier
- 2012 First started using the 'recognize text' function in Acrobat
- 2012 First started using ResearchGate
- 2012 First time I streamed a radio channel through my iPhone
- 2012 First time I used Viber
- 2012 First started taking photos of documents with my iPhone and then emailing them, as a quick substitute for a scanner.
- 2012 First time I had rooftop solar cells
- 2013 Joined ResearchGate
- 2013 Replaced all halogen down lights at home with LED lights
- 2014 First time I ever saw a chainless bicycle (they have been around since 1897, but somehow escaped my attention)
- 2014 First time I saw an electronic cigarette
- 2014 First used DuckDuckGo
- 2014 Started replacing compact fluorescent light bulbs in my home with LED light bulbs
- 2015 First saw someone in the street using a selfie stick
