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Period: to
Greg Ward's technology timespan
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First video game console
The Atari 2600, a momentous birthday present, brought untold hours of joy. Initial games such as Asteroid and Breakout led to addictive second-generation games like Pac-Man, Defender and Pitfall. -
Brothers stereo
Though not allowed to touch it, as a young boy I stood in awe of my brother's light pulsing high-tech stereo. He would play the latest Pink Floyd album while we sat in the dark mesmerized as the lights danced to the beat. -
Grade school TRS-80
My first introduction to a computer, the TRS-80 captivated me with it's incredible 4K and block graphics! Later I would upgrade at home to a Commodore 64 (4x as much memory!), and master the nuances of programming in BASIC and some Cobol and Assembly. -
Junior high Apple 2e
The arrival of Apple into my life! These fantastic devices could run two programs at the same time in different windows (before "Windows" took the idea to PCs). The school also had some IBMS, running the ubiquitous MS-DOS. -
College Prime Mainframe
Though I'd owned a modem in the mid-80's and even downloaded some games, this Prime Mainframe in college introduced me to FTP and Telnet and connected me to the broader world. Suddenly I could email my college friend in Egypt, browse libraries at other universities and subscribe to online bulletin boards for every conceivable subject. A friend of mine also programmed a Trojan Horse app to capture every password on campus, but that's a story for another day! -
My first iPod!
My first iPod click-wheel device revolutionized my world. Not since the days of my brother's stereo had the magic and mystery of music and technology so intertwined in my life. Any song from my library, instantly delivered? I was hooked. -
Finally a Smart Phone!
After long resisting even getting a cell phone, I owned a series of free flip phones before finally succumbing to the allure of an iPhone 3GS. Game over - no looking back!
