# Technology you used before it became wide-spread. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 23, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-you-used-before-it-became-wide-spread/629104 "2012-07-23T02:56:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-you-used-before-it-became-wide-spread/629104/21 "2012-07-23T23:29:17Z")
One of the privileges of obtaining a doctorate is the ability to audit any course for free. My dad started taking computer courses in the mid 70’s & I remember going with him to the lab. I wasn’t allowed to use of the few (monochrome) monitors as they were new. No, I sat on the teletype machine playing games like “eliza”, a rudimentary psychoanalyst who had a list of about 10-15 answers for any questions you asked it, & a cave exploration game (Gollum?). I considered it a good night if my stack of 132-col greenbar paper was \>1" thick. Yeah, green was only a color back in those days. Mid-80’s I had one of the first portable CD players. The player was not much bigger than a CD & weighed 1.1 lbs. It could be plugged in, or you could attach the battery, which was roughly the size of the player & weighed 1.4 lbs. Yeah, it weighed 2½ lbs to carry it around, but I could play CDs, not just cassettes, like your walkman. Late 80’s/early 90’s I remember standing in the middle of the street & calling home on one of [these](http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%3Fei%3DUTF-8%26p%3Dearly%2Bcell%2Bphone%2Bpictures&w=160&h=160&imgurl=www.bing.com%2Fimages%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dearly%2Bcell%2Bphone%2Bpictures%23focal%3D14c702fa664405b5ec1416c0c6fe5810%26furl%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.nicomovil.com%252fwp-content%252fuploads%252f2011%252f04%252ffirst-phone-7.bmp&size=&name=search&rcurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fimages%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dearly%2Bcell%2Bphone%2Bpictures%23focal%3D14c702fa664405b5ec1416c0c6fe5810%26furl%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.nicomovil.com%252fwp-content%252fuploads%252f2011%252f04%252ffirst-phone-7.bmp&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fimages%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dearly%2Bcell%2Bphone%2Bpictures%23focal%3D14c702fa664405b5ec1416c0c6fe5810%26furl%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fwww.nicomovil.com%252fwp-content%252fuploads%252f2011%252f04%252ffirst-phone-7.bmp&p=early+cell+phone&type=&no=3&tt=115&oid=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fimages%2Fthumbnail.aspx%3Fq%3D4845784616600324%26id%3D0f4b555b68f01c2883982cb6fd36c481&tit=...+cell+phone+first+mobile+phone+first+cell+phone+invented+the+first+cell&sigr=15vasor5a&sigi=15o5koeo3&sigb=123qjvdnp&fr=moz35), which we had for a race we were putting on. The numbers would display in red. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-you-used-before-it-became-wide-spread/629104/22 "2012-07-24T00:40:13Z")
Email in 1982. I needed to learn a new programming language and had lots of spare time. So I used it to write the first IBM mainframe mail system in my company. It became so popular we packaged it and sold it as a product. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-you-used-before-it-became-wide-spread/629104/23 "2012-07-24T01:09:12Z")
Computers - started with my TRS-80 Model 1 in the mid 70s. I was playing on the internet back in the days of archie servers. Smartphones - I started carrying one in the early 2000s when I was making a Windows CE and a Windows Mobile phone. But my real pride is that I had a very, very early web page. It was for a sports team at my university. I had the roster including pictures, the schedule, stats, etc up there. I coded the html by hand in vi. I remember going to a book store and seeing a book called something like “The Complete Internet White Pages” - it was a list of pretty much all the known web pages at that time. I was in it. Not realizing how awesome that was, I didn’t buy a copy. Sigh. -D/a ---
**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-you-used-before-it-became-wide-spread/629104/24 "2012-07-24T01:12:52Z")
I was always too poor to be cool…but I remember my mom getting caller ID so she could dodge an ex boyfriend’s call. It freaked my friends out. Yeah, that’s trashy, but hey! None of my friends had it! ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2012, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-you-used-before-it-became-wide-spread/629104/25 "2012-07-24T03:03:39Z")
In my last year of college (1970-71), I got a chance to use HTSS, the Honeywell Time Sharing System, an on-line system. We accessed it over the phone lines with a teletype with an integrated acoustic coupler, programmed in BASIC, and stored the source programs on punched tape. We also had a plotter that we could use to play a trajectory shooting game. I wrote a program to plot dragon curves and a 31-gon with all its diagonals. A buddy of mine had gone to MIT and did play one of the earliest versions of Spacewar on an ocilloscope. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-you-used-before-it-became-wide-spread/629104.md?page=1)