A little history, part 2

Early in the 1980's (pre-internet days) there were sites that existed online known as Bulletin Board System or BBS's. They were run on personal computers that were connected to phone numbers that were usually devoted to accessing the BBS only. You had to dial up to these sites using a modem and once you connected (not always a sure thing in those days since the number of concurrent users wasn't very high) you could navigate a text menu to find software to download or forums to post messages to other users - a sort of public email system at that time.

I would have to run software on my home computer then dial a phone number using a phone, once the dial tone changed I would have to place the phone receiver into a pair of rubber cups that were on top of the actual modem. Then the modems became more useful and faster as the years went on, losing the rubber cups and connecting directly to your home computer and eventually being integrated inside the computer on a card.

AOL came along in the early to mid-90's and we got on board here at our home around 1994-95. There was a time when AOL was our only access to the Internet and you had to use the AOL interface at all times - even when accessing early web pages.

Now most of us have broadband connections to the Internet that allow us to email, surf, blog, share videos and photos, access our medical info, play games, check our bank accounts, pay bills, read the news, buy practically anything for sale and even watch TV shows - all at speeds unheard of only a decade ago.

Who knows what is coming next? I expect more wireless connections available freely to anyone anywhere in the next few years, easier setups to allow Ma and Pa to hook up anything they need to use online regardless of their level of computer skill and all of your key personal information eventually stored on or inside of your body.

I know there are people that aren't sure that last item is a good thing but think about how much key information you have to carry around either in a wallet, purse or even your memory? How nice would it be to have all of your account numbers, medical info/history, usernames/passwords, phone numbers, appointments and dates available in a chip that is attached to you somehow that isn't easily lost or stolen?

A little history

As I watched Modern Marvels on the History Channel this morning I was reminded of some of the incredible advances in technology that I take for granted every day that have just appeared in the past couple of decades.

For instance, in the very early 80's I recall going down to Macy's at Valley Fair with Ralph to purchase Atari 800 home computers for each of us. I had to type in lines of BASIC code to run programs and connect a tape drive to it (just exactly like an audio tape recorder) in order to save these programs to use again. The 5.25 inch floppy disc drive cost almost as much as the computer so that had to come much later. Then came the second floppy, the thermal printer, more memory, upgrade to the Atari 800XL, the Atari ST, 10MB external hard drive, a Packard Bell 286 PC, followed by 386, 486, Pentium I, Pentium II, Pentium III desktops, Dell laptops, HP laptops... all the way up to the system I sit at today which has essentially four processors running 3GB of RAM along with 640GB of hard disk space (compare that to the 10MB hard drive I bought back in the mid - 80's for almost as much as my entire system cost last year).

How about any of these everyday devices? CD player, laser disc player, Palm Pilot, DVD player, VCR, CD recorder, DVD recorder, digital camera, camcorder, cell phone, desktop printer, LCD televsion, IPOD, - all of these have been created in my lifetime and I have at various times at least one of each. The first digital camera I remember using was a Kodak SLR with a hard drive back that had to be connected to a SCSI card installed in a computer - the camera and card ran around $10,000 when it first appeared and we had one at Applied. We also had one of the first CD recorders on the market. I still have the very first CD I created back more than 18 years ago from that system. It has held up much better than any tape I have!

The main tasks that I always wanted to be able to do at home on any system I had was to create and edit video. This always seemed to be one generation of equipment away from what I could afford - until the turn of the century. Around the year 2000 I finally obtained the proper combination of software tools and hardware that allowed for full screen video input and output. This included the camcorder I still use today. I was one of the first students in my video class at West Valley to be able to edit my assignments on a computer. Now desktop video is commonplace - Windows these days even comes with software installed to make and output video.

Next time: getting online in the early days, dial tones, acoustic cups and AOL ...

Mini - movie review of UP

Lauri, Mallory and I went to the movies on Sunday to see the newest Pixar film, "Up". It was a good story and as usual a visual treat. It was interesting to see the design choices that they made - especially with the people. In the beginning of the computer graphic animation era there were many problems with trying to depict people on screen using CGI - the "uncanny valley" principal appears. As with most new tools it took the artists using them a while to figure out the best ways to get around this problem. More often in the early days animators simply avoided people as much as possible using animals or machinery to tell stories. "Up" went with the exaggerated design angle which worked well, for me anyway.

As usual there was a new short from Pixar before the feature and it was a hoot! Those folk know how to create a story - no matter how long or short it is. Made a tear come to my eye ...

Elvis is meowing to me right now - I think it is his daily round of "Marco Polo". Yep, there he is now. After noon - ish every day he wanders through the house looking for me and after he finds me he goes back to bed. What a life.

I almost forgot to post one of my favorite new web sites to browse: Awkward Family Photos. This is a site devoted to just what the title says it is - awkward family photos. Take a peek and see!

Some updates

Chelsea and Raquel are in Uganda right now and we were discussing them last night at our bible study - specifically how amazing it is that they can be thousands of miles away and we can follow their progress through their blogs. If you haven't peeked at Chelsea's blog yet I encourage you to do so in the column on the right.

Made a library run on Tuesday... picked up more books about baseball including Hank Greenwald's and Jose Canseco's bios.

I have an appointment in July to have the battery changed in my brain stimulator and apparently it is more involved than I was led to believe. I will be completely asleep when they do the surgery (that is actually better in my opinion) but I will still be able to go home straight from the recovery room when I awake - no overnight stay planned as of now.

The final version of the music video we made at the Witticks last month can be viewed at this link.

Weekend of fun

We went up to visit my sister and her family over the Memorial Day weekend and while we were there we shot some footage for a music video I had planned on making. It was interesting to see what happens to different people when a camera is suddenly thrust into their faces - you never really know what you will get.

I had put some thought and pre-work into planning for the shoot but still ended up short of footage. I seem to remember that real directors have to shoot more than 10 times the amount of footage than they will actually use.

Overall I had fun and hope that everyone I roped into being behind or in front of the camera did too. It made me laugh to hear my niece telling her grandmother all about what we had done.

Welcome to the show that never ends

I went to see my neurologist yesterday for a quarterly check and my battery needs to be changed at the end of June. The battery in the pulse generator inside my chest - which isn't too bad (so says the staff in Neurology, none of whom I am pretty sure have never experienced it yet themselves) but still will require a visit to Redwood City for an out-patient 'procedure' (no laughing, Ralph). Also means a scalpel of some size cutting into my chestal area to pull out the device and replacing the battery and then staples to close the wound... er, uh - incision.

So I've got that to look forward to.

Tomorrow will be the end of two weeks out on MLOA for me and so far I have found enough to do to not be completely bored. I have read a few books, watched a few movies I had never seen before, and managed to create a couple of videos. Even made it outside to the library a couple of times. That's outside of the house ...

Caught the new Brian Wilson show on Comcast called 'Life of Brian' about the daily life of the Giants' closer and almost 10 minutes of the half-hour episode was devoted to watching him play Rock Band on his Xbox. Sounds pretty much like my life ...

Date night - well, sorta

Lauri and I had a special 'date night' last night - we spent it at Kaiser Hospital. I mentioned something about not getting out all day and the next thing you know we are down in the emergency room waiting around for test results to be reviewed. I will let Lauri explain in more detail what happened but I will say that all of her results came back negative (that's a good thing, George) and Lauri is fine.

It doesn't seem to matter how many time saving gizmos and procedures and new technology that they get down at the average emergency room - it always takes 4 hours once you are there. The doctor who sent Lauri even gave her a secret "code word" to get into the ER faster (TIA) but all that seemed to do was get her into a bed to begin waiting sooner. I finished reading a book, exhausted the battery on my IPod Touch, and had to break into my emergency medication stash I keep in my car just for these types of occasions to get through the evening! We didn't notice the television in the room until after midnight - missed the Simpsons - because the tv looked like just another medical device!

There are a lot of sick people in a hospital on a Friday night. The best one last night was some guy who was riding a motorcycle off-road somewhere when he rounded a blind corner only to run into a low hanging branch. Ran into it with his nose. His nose lost that battle. The nose was still on his face, it just wasn't in the same place where it was before. There were a lot of hand cleaner bottles around and a lot of posters about swine flu on the walls.