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State-of-the-Art Hardware--a
Decade Ago
By Bonny L. Georgia
(4/13/00)
Your computer clocks at 1 GHz,
you access the Internet through DSL at a minimum of 384 kbps, and you look
at Web sites through a supermodel-thin LCD. Life is good. But for the sake
of perspective, we're going to take a short trip, a little jaunt into the
wired life of our recent past.
The year is 1990; flannel
shirts and David Lynch's Twin
Peaks are hot, and George Bush is scoring Republican brownie
points for launching Operation Desert Shield.
In those days, PCs were the corporate world's beasts of burden, not
gateways to the Internet or (gasp!) gaming machines. Cell phones were too
bulky to stuff in a purse or a pocket, floppies were the mass storage of
choice, and scanners were too costly to be on every desktop. And that's
only the beginning.
Whether you're too young to remember what '90s technology was like or
old enough that you'd rather forget it, here's an enlightening backward
glance at the humble beginnings of today's must-have tech tools.
Systems
and Notebooks
With
Windows 95 still a good six years away and DOS and the Macintosh holding
significant market share, what were the specs on 1990's fastest PC? And
who sold the bantamweight notebook of the day?
Printers
and Scanners
Most
of us take our personal printers and color scanners for granted, but a
decade ago, only power users were lucky enough to have their
own.
Modems
Ready to toss your 56-kbps modem in favor
of faster cable or DSL access? Quit whining for a second and imagine
online life with a ten-year-old modem.
Storage
What do you mean your 20GB drive doesn't
hold all your stuff? In 1990, a 40MB drive would have been more than
enough for even the worst software pack rat.
Cell
Phones
Way back
when, Motorola came out with a phone that weighed just more than half a
pound and set a new standard in lightweight mobile
communications.
Bonny L. Georgia is a freelance
technology journalist living in Hudson, Massachusetts. Eric Griffith also contributed to
this article.
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