Difference between revisions of "Technology timeline"

Revision as of 19:50, 11 February 2014

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 purchase 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

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

2008 I used an iPhone for the first time

2009 Used GPS for the first time

2010 I used wi-fi 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

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..."

2012 My first dishwasher (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 a streamed a radio channel through my iPhone

2012 First time I used Viber

Back

• Back to MyUni
• Back to Derek Abbott's homepage
• Back to EEE Department page
• Back to the University of Adelaide homepage