I am thankful for this day for electricity that powers this computer.

[Stuart G]

..I recall 45 years ago hearing about computers, and how they are run. They were in large rooms with all kinds of stuff and far more expensive than anyone could imagine. Just as important is the electricity that runs through my home, and operates so many take for granted things. Like the refrigerator, TV, radio, lights and other things we use every day.
...From time to time I go to meetings in a very old church. On the walls of this church are gas pipes that used to provide gas that was used to light up the rooms. Of course, they are capped off, and solidly fused, so no one can get in those pipes, but they kinda stick out, and many do not know what they are. Back in the 1880s, these pipes were used at night to illuminate the classrooms of the church. Of course, most people don't know that, but I used to teach history and I know somewhat of the history of the city where the church is.

[Chin music]

1. God save the grid.

Go solar...soon.

[Stuart G]

2. About solar energy...just a side note...Back in the 50s there was a TV Show called, "Our Mr.Sun"

It was a special one hour show, about the future of Solar Power. I watched it in wonder...Could that ever happen. Where the sun powers stuff. This was the future, and someday there would be unlimited solar energy.

Guess What ? Someday has arrived.........and guess what this entire TV show..is on the internet at the link below for all too see. 1956.. "Our Mr.Sun". 56 minutes, Yes, this is it .enjoy (commercial free)

[Chin music]

3. I'm aware of it. Great blast from the past.

When putin and trump shut the power off.....all the computers and code in the world becomes,....useless. Feet in the street is timeless too. Good post. Thanks for the memories.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

4. I was a computer user long before most.

In 1969 I went to work for an airline that was the second one in this country to go to a computerized reservation system. My first day of work, it was still the old manual system. Then the computer was turned on. Wow. Even though I hadn't worked with the old system, I had to deal with all the other airlines without a computerized reservation system, and oh, my, could that be difficult.

The essential point is that I've been using computers for a VERY long time, and I'm quite comfortable with them, even though I'm not always at the cutting edge in terms of my knowledge.

I remember in those early years complaining when the computer went down, griping that it was such a hassle. Over time, especially as reliability grew, I understood how the computers made air travel possible. Along with everything else.

I kind of want to write a science fiction story in which someone from now (currently 2019) goes back thirty or forty years, and complains constantly at what's missing. No cell phones. Dear lord, no smart phones. No internet. Long distance calls are EXPENSIVE. And so on.

Even those of us who came of age before personal computers have largely forgotten how much they've transformed our lives.

[Stuart G]

5. Maybe some have forgotten, but I do remember.

..They talked about all the stuff that was going to become real. Sci Fi. And a lot of it has become real. The stuff in medicine has saved lives. And made diagnosis much easier and far quicker. Oh, one added note. Please hang in there. The U.S. government spent a fortune on going to the moon and early trips there and back. We landed on the moon and sent back real pictures for all to see..
..And some said that was a waste of money.....What it did do was improve and reduce the size of the computers in the rockets and ships that landed on the moon and quickened the day for me to type these words. Yes, all that money on landing on the .."MOON" eventually funneled back into society in the area of electronics and stuff like computers. Stuff in TVs and other devices were made smaller, and ultimately cheaper....
.........Now here is another one. I took a course in the late 70s or early 80s..where the professor said that one day all those chips would be so cheap, that they would be available to everyone. Not just the rich, and universities and huge corporations...That is what the professor said. If it was in 1977, then it was about 40 years ago. give or take a year or so....
...And he was correct. Not just a little correct, but a whole lot of correct..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!..and I am alive to see this incredible show and type on the computer in 2019. I won't go into it, but that too is a miracle.!!!!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. Oh, my.

My very first PC, bought in 1991, if I recall correctly, had a 40 Mg hard drive. About a month after I bought it, I got a call from the store. They were offering an upgrade to 80 Mg, for, I don't recall for sure, maybe 75 bucks. Maybe less. Whatever, it was well worth doing.

Just a few days ago I finally got a smart phone. For various reasons I'd been resisting getting one, and then my old phone died. Or I killed it. It's hard to say. Because of my personal wariness about smart phones, I've gotten a very basic one, but even a basic smart phone (as I'm sure you know very well) is absolutely incredible. It has more power than we could have imagined 40 or 50 years ago.

When I think back on my first computerized airline reservations system, I know that I could probably write a program that would be at least as good as that in some sort of data base. It was as basic as it could be, but of course did the job very well.

My one concern about those very much younger than you or I, is that they won't fully appreciate the technology. I'm not suggesting they go back to what it was in some point in the past, but I do want them to understand what they've gained. Perhaps my grandparents, born in the late 19th century, felt the same way about their grandchildren. Did we fully appreciate electricity?

I once asked by mom, born in 1916, if she'd always had electricity as a child. Nope, as it turned out. Until she was about 10 she lived in homes with gas lighting. Had I not asked, she'd have never gotten around to telling me.

[Dale Neiburg]

9. Our earliest PC was pre-Windows.

I still have it. It didn't have a hard drive at all -- ran MS-DOS (you had to type commands and then read the result), and had two drives for 5-inch DSDD (360 kB) floppies. How compact was the Microsoft operating system in those days? I generally fired up with a boot diskette that had the entire operating system plus PC-Write (a surprisingly sophisticated word processor) -- all on one 360 k diskette!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. I was sorry when I had to switch to windows.

I was comfortable with the command line.

[Chin music]

7. +1

Good stuff Stew!

[Chin music]

8. Very interesting!

[irisblue]

10. Cobalt. Fortran. Basic.

1970s movie-Colossus, the Forbin Project. Look that one up.

[hunter]

12. My great grandma's house was a two room cabin with an outhouse.

It had a big wood stove in the kitchen, which was the primary source of heat and hot water.

My great grandfather had an expensive radio habit. Powering a radio without electric service was not a trivial task. Batteries were expensive.

When rural electrification came along my great grandpa jumped at the opportunity. My great grandma thought it would be the ruin of the family.

She consented to two 40 watt light bulbs, one in each room, and the damned radio. She kept the oil lamps.

Later, after my great grandfather had passed away, my mom's cousin bought her a little RCA 45 rpm record player that plugged into the damned radio and a few records.

As children we weren't allowed to touch anything electric -- not the radio, not the record player, not the two light switches, because if we did we might electrocute ourselves, or just as bad, raise the electric bill beyond the monthly minimum charge.

[Kaleva]

13. The piping used to supply gas to the lights in the rooms of my house are still there.