Blair's Blog

At breakfast on Saturday with the kids, the conversation turned to the “olden days”. Yep, the time before the internet. None of our three kids have never known a time without the web, google or smartphones – the whole of the “information superhighway” exists in their pockets. Remember the information superhighway? Even that term sounds trite and dated now.

Life without a computer with high-speed, always connected wifi is basically a concept that is as foreign to my kids as the idea of having a television is to my generation. Or access to a telephone to my parent’s generation. Today, my kids have phones with them wherever they go, but never call and talk to anyone. They have a television in the house, but have no concept of having to wait until Tuesday at 8:00pm to catch the latest episode of their favourite show.

The world wide web had been developed about 4 years before Steven was born, having begun with CERN creating the first webpage in 1991 and then releasing it as open-source software to the public in 1993. I had a webpage up and running in 1996 – exactly what it looked like is pretty much lost now, as I made periodic edits and the various versions are lost to history. However, this is what that same page looked like in 1999 when I updated it after Mark was born:

As the breakfast conversation continued, we got to talking about the early computers that Brenda and I worked with. Brenda’s first use of a computer was in Grade 11 writing simple Basic programs on a Commodore PET with no disk storage – only cassette tapes.  My experience was similar – the first computer that I used was an Apple II in about Grade 8 – I actually entered a coding competition with a friend in about 1977.  That was long before such advanced technology as the 5.25 inch floppy drive was available!

The first computer in our family, though, was a spectacularly expensive Gateway2000 486DX-33 that we purchased in 1992:

That’s $2700 in US dollars – back in 1992 the exchange rate was about $0.84 Canadian per USD so that was actually about $3225.  To put that in perspective, adjusted for inflation to 2016 that is just shy of $5000.  And what did we get for that princely sum?  Here are a few highlights from the packing list:

• 486 DX CPU running at a staggering 33 MHz
• Gemini motherboard
• 1 Mb of 70ns memory (SIMM packaging)
• ATI Ultra VGA video card
• 120 Mb Western Digital IDE hard drive
• Both kinds of floppy drive
• “Crystal Scan” 15″ VGA monitor
• DOS 5 (Gateway version)
• Windows 3.1
• Software: MS Works, Money, Publisher and Entertainment

These images are of the packing slip that came with the system – the images are big and I had to really bump the contrast and brightness because they were “Printed with SOY INK” which, sadly, has not withstood the test of time very well. 

The day that cow-spotted Gateway box arrived was a pretty exciting one and we toted that computer around through a number of moves – from the house in Cold Lake to the apartment, then to Thetis Island, Australia and back to Chestermere.  I don’t know exactly when we retired it – probably some time in 1999.  By that time we had a second computer (a Compaq laptop purchased in Australia) and it was certainly showing its age after 7 years.  The only pictures that I can find with it are from our time at Capernwray in the summer of 1996:

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