Technology is changing faster than anyone can stay up with it.
by: James A. Warholic
I remember just like it was yesterday when the first hand held calculators came out into the market place. They were big and bulky with big red LEDs and the batteries would only last for a short time. They only had a rudimentary amount of functions: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
The first one I ever saw was when my sister, a teacher, bought one for what I think was a couple of hundred dollars. I recall the family all getting excited about this technology and wondering where it would lead. We all wanted to try it out. Then with in another year or so the next wave of new and improved calculators were seen in the marketplace. These were the scientific calculators that had more functions but a lot more expensive. It was a long time before I actually saw one of these that someone had purchased.
As I recall, it was a couple of years latter that my Dad had purchased a basic one.
During those early years of the calculators, school kids were still being taught to use slide rules. In fact during that time it was forbidden to even have a calculator at school. The teachers said that students needed to do the higher math functions on paper plus use slide rules.
Now, look at us today. With the advent of high speed throughput heat staking machines (equipment used in assembly process), the manufacturing processes and costs have been reduced dramatically. How times change. Teachers are asking students to go out and purchase scientific calculators for their math assignments and for use in class. The cost of these calculators have dropped in price to just about to the point where anyone can afford it. Not only are they less expensive but their computing power is on the magnitude greater then what a computer could do twenty years ago. Likewise, computers today have more computing power than forty years ago.
Kids today do not have a clue what it is like not to have calculators. Most in the United States have access to computers either at home or at school.
Yep, technology is a changing… And it is pushing and pulling us along.
In light of the Internet, where will we be in another five or ten years?
Above all – Tell it Like it is And Do it With Style!
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