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The time between when the Internet got popular and smartphones became common

Started by bugo, June 18, 2015, 07:28:42 PM

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bugo

I have been pondering this subject for several days. We (those of us who were born before the mid-'80s) remember that there was a period of several years between the time that the internet went mainstream in the '90s and the average person could access it either from home, school, the library and other places and the time that smartphones became ubiquitous in the early 21st century. In 50-100 years will anybody realize that there was a gap between the time that the internet became mainstream and the time that smartphones became common or will they believe them to have been invented at the same time? Will they be able to fathom that at one time you needed a computer (or Web TV and other methods that are best forgotten) to access the internet and that phones did not have internet capability or will they think the smartphone and the internet were developed at the same time and that phones have always been internet capable? Will they know about dial up? Historians and geeks will know that the gap existed, but what about the average Joe Blow or Soccer Mom? Those of us who lived through that era (which is most of the members of this forum) lived in a very unique time in history. Smartphones are still in their infancy, and internet access through computers is still superior than on mobile devices but the gap is narrowing. Then again, who knows what technology will be like in 50-100 years? There may be ways to access the internet by then that we can't even fathom today, but for the near future the smartphone and the computer are going to be the main ways to get online. I consider the smartphone to be the most important invention since the automobile, and that the internet is an integral part of the smartphone. If the smartphone did not exist I would say that the internet was the most important invention but since smartphones feature the internet among many other things, I consider the smartphone #1. The cell phone in general is one of the 2 or 3 most important inventions in the second half of the 20th century, and the internet is also probably the most important inventions of the 20th century and the smartphone combines the internet with the cell phone (and the smartphone can be used for many different things such as a camera, a calculator and an alarm clock.) Mobile device are wonderful things and it boggles my mind that something so small can do so many different things. A typical cheap prepaid cell phone has far more processing power than an old mainframe computer from the '50s and '60s that were gigantic. Technology is amazing. I cannot fathom what technology will be like in 50 or even 25 years.


Rothman

Got an idea for a museum exhibit, then:  Let people download Doom through a 56k modem just like most of us had to.

...

(for those who are too young to remember, it took all night long)
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

bandit957

I had no idea smartphones were even common now.

I remember 300 baud modems and the old-style BBS's. I had a 300 baud modem for my Atari 800 in 1987.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

noelbotevera

I was born in early '04, which is enough to know that smartphones were something to laugh at, and computers were still 56k modems running on Windows '95. Seven years later, now technology got a serious upgrade. Yes, I saw the gap, and it still has its mark on the world. Innovation is everywhere my friends. Innovation is everywhere.


this comment was a better love story than Twilight.

iBallasticwolf2

Quote from: noelbotevera on June 18, 2015, 08:24:56 PM
I was born in early '04, which is enough to know that smartphones were something to laugh at, and computers were still 56k modems running on Windows '95. Seven years later, now technology got a serious upgrade. Yes, I saw the gap, and it still has its mark on the world. Innovation is everywhere my friends. Innovation is everywhere.


this comment was a better love story than Twilight.

I was born in early '03 so my view is pretty much the same as yours. I remember my parents having fliphones and transitioning to smart phones. I still have their old Android Smartphones before they bought iPhones. I have a modern Android phone actually.
Only two things are infinite in this world, stupidity, and I-75 construction

SignGeek101

I had a flip phone until Feb. 2014 actually. Before that, I had to use a computer to access this forum. I recall first using my computer with my dad's old work laptop sometime around 2004, 2005. Ask Jeeves, Netscape Navigator, you know the good old days!

Nowadays, I rarely post on my phone. I don't use it much (I charge it once a week) and I much prefer typing on a computer.

Scott5114

Unless something radically changes on smartphones, desktops will remain the primary method of doing actual work on computers for a long time. Smartphones and tablets are only ideal for passive consumption (reading but not writing).
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

iBallasticwolf2

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 18, 2015, 08:45:59 PM
Unless something radically changes on smartphones, desktops will remain the primary method of doing actual work on computers for a long time. Smartphones and tablets are only ideal for passive consumption (reading but not writing).

Especially with screen sizes. Also laptops are becoming more mainstream then desktops and that is a more active change. I still love my desktop for screen size and expandibility compared to a laptop
Only two things are infinite in this world, stupidity, and I-75 construction

vdeane

Despite being born in 1991, my Dad was a bit of a pioneer with desktop computers and the internet.  I grew up on dial up and Windows for Workgroups 3.11.  It certainly was interesting to watch the internet evolve from ISP-based search engines and Geocities to RSS feeds and forums to Facebook and apps.  IMO the middle period was my favorite.

Ironically, despite being a pioneer with desktop computers, my Dad wants nothing to do with smartphones (he still has a flip phone; Mom and I have phones with a physical keyboard).  I still don't have one either (see previous sentence - though I'm considering upgrading to a smartphone).
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

bugo

Quote from: Scott5114 on June 18, 2015, 08:45:59 PM
Unless something radically changes on smartphones, desktops will remain the primary method of doing actual work on computers for a long time. Smartphones and tablets are only ideal for passive consumption (reading but not writing).

Don't forget about the humble laptop. I use my laptop much like I would a desktop: I have a separate keyboard and mouse that I use. I built a stand for it where there is a shelf that the laptop sits on, and the stand has a flatscreen monitor above where the laptop sits. I set the laptop on the stand and use the monitor and the laptop screen as a dual monitor setup. I only open and close the laptop when I'm taking it somewhere.  It functions as a desktop the majority of the time. I only use it as a laptop when I go out of town and when I do I take it with me along with my mouse and keyboard.

Here's a diagram for the computer stand: The metal base of the stand is made from a ruined old folding leaf table my great grandmother used to have. You can see the opened laptop sitting on the shelf in the diagram. The flatscreen monitor is attached to the back piece of wood at the top of the stand with long screws with the same threads as the shorter screws that came with the monitor. The gap between the top of the laptop and the bottom of the monitor is perhaps six inches, but you could make the gap as big or small as you wanted it to be. You could even mount a second monitor on the stand, turning it into a triple monitor setup. The bottom part is made of some sort of metal while the top is made of scrap plywood. I actually designed it in my head at the hardware store when I went to to purchase the items necessary to build the stand. My mom gave me the scrap wood, and while in the store I thought of what kinds of bolts and nuts to use and how they went together and saw it in my mind's eye and I bought everything I needed to finish the project. Everything is bolted together with high quality hardware and it was overbuilt and overengineered to be honest. The top portion of the stand is detachable from the metal base and can easily be removed by removing 4 wingnuts. In fact, right now I'm not using the metal base at all. It was simple to make and works very well for what I use it for. It didn't take long to put together, and I probably have $10 in it, all in hardware. It's ugly as shit but I don't care. On the end of the shelf that the laptop sits on, I screwed some hooks into the wood which I use to hang my watch and some other things. I also have my iPod mounted on the end of the shelf that the laptop sits on. I had to do some trial and error with some of the parts like the piece behind the laptop that the monitor is attached to which was originally much shorter and wider.

Another way to build it would be to use the lower half of an old computer chair to mount the stand on instead of the old table legs. You could the wheel the stand around and rotate it as well as adjusting the height. I haven't tried using the chair as the base so I don't know how well it would work or how steady it would be but it is rock solid the way I built it. I would be interested in how well it would work with a chair bottom as a base. It is cheap and ugly but it works very well for what I use it for. It came in really handy when the screen on one of my older laptops decided to keep working.


Scott5114

Laptops are fine, and I have one, but I find them a little confining to work on for too long a time period. Your setup seems like it would work well for me, but if I'm using a separate monitor, mouse, and keyboard, a desktop is a cheaper purchase, and easier to upgrade.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

kkt

I find myself appalled every day at how poorly the power of computers is being used.  I get worse productivity now than I did with a lot of 1990s apps, because today most of the bandwidth is wasted on layer after layer of corporate spyware, cookies, advertisements, flashing and moving everything, pictures that aren't important to the point being made...  It feels like Gutenberg coming back 10 years after the printed Bible and saw nothing but advertising circulars.

Anyway.  I like a full-size keyboard so I can touch-type, and a large screen, so I don't use a smartphone and I am happy with my flipphone to carry around.

slorydn1

My primary method of access is a laptop. I haven't owned a desktop since 2006. I am wirelessly connected to my printer, and when I want a very big screen to look at I simply plug the HDMI from my Samsung 46 inch LED TV into my laptop and viola, instant supersize monitor. Even without doing that, my last 2 laptops had 17 inch monitors anyway, how much bigger does one need?

I also find my recliner to be a lot more comfortable than that dining room chair I hijacked to sit by my computer desk back in the day LOL. Plus could you imagine the headache of trying to drag the entire desktop and all of it's peripherals into the bathroom for time spent in the "law library"?  :-D




I also have a Galaxy s5, and I do occasionally access the internet from it while on a smoke break at work, or the few times I am riding in the car while my wife is driving, but the computer is still the way to go for me. It always will be.


All that said, I do remember fondly the time I spent on the computer going way back even to the pre-internet days.


On the phone side, do y'all remember when cell phones were called car phones? (I laugh because of the constant push now-a-days to have phones removed from cars altogether).


I had a bag phone that I had removed the working parts out of the bag, hid them between the front seats, and the receiver portion was sitting on a cradle down on the "hump". The phone never came out of the car. I had that arrangement until the early 2000's when I finally got a flip phone. My plan was 30 minutes a month for like $30 and a nasty penalty amount per minute over that (I forgot what it was, but needless to say I didn't go over 30 minutes a month).
Please Note: All posts represent my personal opinions and do not represent those of any governmental agency, non-governmental agency, quasi-governmental agency or wanna be governmental agency

Counties: Counties Visited

english si

Quote from: noelbotevera on June 18, 2015, 08:24:56 PMI was born in early '04, which is enough to know that smartphones were something to laugh at, and computers were still 56k modems running on Windows '95.
I had broadband and a Windows 2000 PC well before then. The PC was a throw out from my dad's work and was pretty old (so I avoided ME. Though sadly not '98 which is what the home PC ran on before I got the 2k one) - I got a new one in late '04 as the old one didn't satisfy my mid-range desires.

Smartphones weren't something to laugh about then either.

But of course, babies aren't really on the pulse of culture or good at remembering...

1995hoo

I find it amusing how many posts in this thread take mobile phones (not necessarily smartphones–any mobile phone) for granted.

I remember what a novelty it was in the late 1980s when my dad got a "car phone." It was one of those mini-suitcase type things. Maybe not quite that big, but if you stacked four or five iPads together (not the iPad Mini or the iPad Air), you'd probably approximate its size. No voice-dialing and the phone was connected to the base via a conventional coiled cord, though the buttons were on the part you held in your hand (but on the side away from your ear, unlike many conventional home phones). I guess the idea was to let you dial without picking it up, then pick up when the call connected.

This thread is making me remember how on the Dukes of Hazzard (the real TV show, not the more recent movie with the wrong actors), the federal agents always had "car phones" that were very obviously just part of a conventional Ma Bell—issued home phone.

(Some of you kids won't remember that until the 1980s, you did not own the phones in your house, you rented them from the phone company.)
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

1995hoo

Quote from: vdeane on June 18, 2015, 09:08:49 PM
Despite being born in 1991, my Dad was a bit of a pioneer with desktop computers and the internet. ....

Your dad was born in 1991 yet you're 24? Damn, he got started early! :bigass:
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

jeffandnicole

Quote from: 1995hoo on June 20, 2015, 09:17:39 AM
I find it amusing how many posts in this thread take mobile phones (not necessarily smartphones—any mobile phone) for granted.

I remember what a novelty it was in the late 1980s when my dad got a "car phone." It was one of those mini-suitcase type things. Maybe not quite that big, but if you stacked four or five iPads together (not the iPad Mini or the iPad Air), you'd probably approximate its size. No voice-dialing and the phone was connected to the base via a conventional coiled cord, though the buttons were on the part you held in your hand (but on the side away from your ear, unlike many conventional home phones). I guess the idea was to let you dial without picking it up, then pick up when the call connected.

This thread is making me remember how on the Dukes of Hazzard (the real TV show, not the more recent movie with the wrong actors), the federal agents always had "car phones" that were very obviously just part of a conventional Ma Bell–issued home phone.

(Some of you kids won't remember that until the 1980s, you did not own the phones in your house, you rented them from the phone company.)

My first car phone was when I started driving in 1992.  It was a bag phone; mostly stayed under the seat, and any phone call was 45 cents a minute.  Calls had to stay in the local area because of routing issues and such.  You couldn't carry it around - you had to plug it in the car's cigarette lighter socket (which meant you had to remove the cigarette lighter) if you wanted to use it.

I was born in the 1970's.  While I don't recall my parents renting a phone, my grandparents did have Bell phones in their houses.

I remember when I worked at bowling centers, my one boss had a AOL account, and an internet addiction.  After those first 10 hours, he would rack up $300 bills a month for all the additional time spent on it!

bandit957

I remember our home phone actually belonging to the phone company up until the mid-'80s. Then the phone industry was broken up, and my folks buyed a combination phone/radio for the bedroom, but it was the same line as the phone in the kitchen. This phone/radio was destroyed a few years later when the electric company sent a surge through the house that shorted out many of our appliances, most notably a perfectly good TV.

The sound of an '80s phone ringing still scares me, because oftentimes it was my school principal calling my parents and lying about stuff I allegedly did at school.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

Brandon

Quote from: 1995hoo on June 20, 2015, 09:17:39 AM
This thread is making me remember how on the Dukes of Hazzard (the real TV show, not the more recent movie with the wrong actors), the federal agents always had "car phones" that were very obviously just part of a conventional Ma Bell—issued home phone.

(Some of you kids won't remember that until the 1980s, you did not own the phones in your house, you rented them from the phone company.)

Watch Banacek sometime.  The lead, played by George Peppard has a radio telephone in his limo.  That's from 1972.
"If you think this has a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." - Ramsay Bolton

"Symbolic of his struggle against reality." - Reg

iBallasticwolf2

Quote from: bandit957 on June 20, 2015, 10:16:42 AM
I remember our home phone actually belonging to the phone company up until the mid-'80s. Then the phone industry was broken up, and my folks buyed a combination phone/radio for the bedroom, but it was the same line as the phone in the kitchen. This phone/radio was destroyed a few years later when the electric company sent a surge through the house that shorted out many of our appliances, most notably a perfectly good TV.

The sound of an '80s phone ringing still scares me, because oftentimes it was my school principal calling my parents and lying about stuff I allegedly did at school.

I detect a corrupt school principal
Only two things are infinite in this world, stupidity, and I-75 construction

bandit957

Quote from: iBallasticwolf2 on June 20, 2015, 10:32:00 AM
I detect a corrupt school principal

He was.

He was absolutely one of the most despicable human beings I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with.
Might as well face it, pooing is cool

iBallasticwolf2

Quote from: bandit957 on June 20, 2015, 11:05:27 AM
Quote from: iBallasticwolf2 on June 20, 2015, 10:32:00 AM
I detect a corrupt school principal

He was.

He was absolutely one of the most despicable human beings I have ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

I have had bad expirences with people in my school as well. Both teachers and students. Also no one in my school can shut up.
Only two things are infinite in this world, stupidity, and I-75 construction

Brian556

I still prefer to do the vast majority of my internet browsing and email from my pc.
I only use my iphone to access weather radar, and to access FB to get weather, traffic, and emergency info.

The reason I only use the iphone to access the info that I really need when away from home is that the iphone is really inconvenient to use compared to a PC. Also, there is no reason to pay for a huge data plan just to access info that can wait until I get home.

I think it is ridiculous that people try to do so much on a tiny phone. Watching a baseball game on a phone at work? Really?

The only thing I don't like about pc's is that they take too long to start up. I wish they would get rid of P.O.S.T( which, to me is not totally necessary), and just let them start up as fast as iphones.

Also, I don't like laptops. The keyboard is unconformable and awkward to use. And don't get me started on those shitty trackpads.

1995hoo

Quote from: iBallasticwolf2 on June 20, 2015, 11:33:23 AM
.... Also no one in my school can shut up.

This has been true of kids, especially kids in their teens, for years. It always amazes me that anyone in a high school is ever stupid enough to vandalize something. Invariably the idiot can't keep his mouth shut and he tells a friend, who tells someone else, and eventually someone honest or someone who is a friend of the person whose property was vandalized hears about it. I remember when I was in high school some idiots decided they didn't like a guy in the class two years younger than mine and they took baseball bats and smashed up his mother's Jaguar and burned a profanity into his front lawn. Of course, they couldn't keep quiet and within two days everyone in school knew who did it. Within hours several of us had contacted the affected parents, who pressed charges (good for them).

Still, I'm glad I grew up prior to social media. Kids have always been nasty to each other, but social media makes it far easier to spread ridicule far more widely than was ever the case before.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

iBallasticwolf2

Quote from: 1995hoo on June 20, 2015, 01:13:46 PM
Quote from: iBallasticwolf2 on June 20, 2015, 11:33:23 AM
.... Also no one in my school can shut up.

This has been true of kids, especially kids in their teens, for years. It always amazes me that anyone in a high school is ever stupid enough to vandalize something. Invariably the idiot can't keep his mouth shut and he tells a friend, who tells someone else, and eventually someone honest or someone who is a friend of the person whose property was vandalized hears about it. I remember when I was in high school some idiots decided they didn't like a guy in the class two years younger than mine and they took baseball bats and smashed up his mother's Jaguar and burned a profanity into his front lawn. Of course, they couldn't keep quiet and within two days everyone in school knew who did it. Within hours several of us had contacted the affected parents, who pressed charges (good for them).

Still, I'm glad I grew up prior to social media. Kids have always been nasty to each other, but social media makes it far easier to spread ridicule far more widely than was ever the case before.

I can't wait for my house to be burned down by @sshole kids in high school! (Sarcasm alert)
Only two things are infinite in this world, stupidity, and I-75 construction



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