Source of boxed information: all Parks Associates except "Speed Demons," Yankee Group Oddly enough, when I was growing up two of my favorite cartoon shows held diametrically opposite views of technology in our lives. The Flintstones promoted the simple life.
Here are the facts, which are not in dispute. Furthermore, I am not making this up. In a suburb of Richmond, Virginia, a man wearing a television on his head was leaving televisions on front porches.
When the Compact Disc was introduced 22 years ago, it rocked everyone's world. Like any seismic change, it fostered its share of controversy and anger and even some name-calling. As a devout young digerati, I waited patiently for all the conspiracy theories to die away. I'm still waiting.
Did you hear that just now...? No, you didn't. You were talking on your cellphone, probably while listening to your iPod. This morning I saw a guy talking on his cellphone, listening to his iPod, and eating a cheeseburger - all at once. I just prayed that he wasn't going to get behind the wheel. But I digress.
It is the job of engineers to push the envelope and design the products of the future, not the products of today. When the first Compact Disc players were on the drawing board, 780-nm lasers were extremely expensive, but engineers anticipated that low-cost versions would soon become available. They bet right: cheap laser modules were perfected just before the CD format’s launch.
You probably read about it in the news. Some filmmakers were making a documentary on the history of Atari, and they became intrigued by an urban legend of lost video games. To solve the mystery, they brought in heavy equipment and dug into a
concrete-covered grave.
The year is 1964. Under a starry night sky, you are cruising down Route 66 in a new Mustang, listening to St Louis Cardinal baseball on KMOX-AM, the immortal Bob Gibson on the mound, throwing against the Cubs.
One minute you are the Shiny Object that everyone is clamoring for. Then the next minute you are Yesterday's News, thrown onto the trash heap of history, in favor of the next Shiny Object. Alas, the iPod.