If you look around you today, the world is teeming with technology at every turn. In fact, it might be safe to say that many of us wouldn’t be able to enjoy our lives to the degree to which we’re accustomed without most of today’s technology.
But all of that technology that makes your life so much better didn’t just appear overnight. Much of it went through many phases of development before it was even user-friendly for the majority.
Picture this: Imagine a world without Internet access. Or even better, imagine life without your smartphone. And while the latter thought might prove to give you a bit of anxiety, if we were without the Internet today, many people, such as web developers, wouldn’t even be employed.
Our technology has shaped our lives since the dawn of civilization. From stone tools to microprocessors, it all had to start somewhere. Here, we’ll explore how today’s tech got its start years ago.
The Internet
If you can’t imagine life without the Internet, believe it or not, there was once a time when this technology was the stuff of science fiction. But the Internet didn’t just happen one day. In fact, it went through several phases of development.
In 1969, the United States Military developed ARPANET, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network.
This military exclusive system is hailed as the first attempt at the Internet that we know of today. But this network was far from robust. In fact, it had major problems, and when it first went online, it crashed the entire system.
Enter Usenet
About ten years later in 1979, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, two Duke University grad students, developed the concept of Usenet. This was the first Unix to Unix proxy development that utilized a dial-up connection to send information from one computer to another that made the Internet that we know today possible.
In fact, Usenet is active today, working much like its original design but bigger, better, and with faster overall service. But even though Usenet exists as a separate entity from the Internet, you can still access Usenet using the Internet. However, it’s best to use a Usenet service provider for this task.
Smartphones
What would we all do without our smartphones? Well, if you’re old enough to remember the 90’s, we’d probably be socializing a great deal more and busying ourselves by burning CD’s. But that time has long since passed.
Long before the iPhone 13 Pro, in 1992, the first smartphone was created by IBM and called the Simon Personal Communicator (or SPC). However, most simply referred to the archaic device as Simon.
But Simon wasn’t exactly the smartest kid on the block. In fact, he was rather clunky and glitchy. But then again, so was the Internet back then, too.
All Simon could really do was send emails and faxes. But its touchscreen technology would revolutionize the world a decade and a half later.
Enter the Internet
In the early 2000 era, cell phones were finally endowed with Internet connectivity. However, this tech proved to be cumbersome as small screens and buttons were difficult to manipulate and use. But it wasn’t until 2007 when Steve Jobs changed the world as we know it today.
In 2007 the first iPhone was made available to the public, and it’s from this framework that we’ve developed the most advanced supercomputers in the world, big enough to fit in your pocket.
Additionally, the iPhone was the first tool that enabled users to browse the Internet with ease on a handheld device much in the same fashion as on a laptop or a desktop computer.
Our technology has undoubtedly changed throughout human history. But it’s only been in the last 40 years that it has advanced at lightning speed. And as we now have tech upgrades available just about every other month, where we go from here is only up to the imagination and ingenuity of our brightest human minds.
