It Was 20 Years Ago Today

By Daniel Burrus February 24, 2005
Daniel Burrus

This month we are ending our twentieth year of publishing this newsletter, and I can’t help but reflect back on the many technology driven changes we have seen over the past two decades. Technology has indeed changed how we live, work and play.

Twenty years ago, there were no laptops, no World Wide Web, no broadband connections to your house, no digital cameras, no iPods, no DVD players, no plasma displays, no X-Box video games, and only scholars and researchers used the Internet. In addition, only a very minimal number of people used e-mail and pagers, and even fewer used the very expensive and bulky cell phone.

As a way of thanking our loyal readers (many have been with us the entire 20 years), I would like to look back at a few of the articles I pulled from our first issue. Enjoy!

One-Megabit Chips

AT&T Corp. has begun production of the one-megabit computer chip that can store a 100-page book in the area the size of a fingernail. The chip is four times as powerful as today’s 256k model. This will make possible a new generation of portable, battery-operated computers with high sophistication. AT&T’s new chip will be in full production by early next year.

Floppy Disks Play Music

QRS Music Rolls, Inc., of Buffalo, New York, has been making player piano rolls for over 85 years and is now converting 10,000 songs, including live performances, into digital signals on floppy disks to be played back on personal computers.

Degree Via Satellite
National Technological University is a new university for advanced degrees in engineering located in Fort Collins, CO. It has no classrooms and no faculty, and does its teaching by satellite.

Office Product Update
Eastman Kodak Company recently unveiled new electronic equipment for offices. They introduced two new systems: a $50,000 network for publishing and a $500,000 imaging system for displaying microfilm records.

Magnets Diagnose Disease
General Electric has developed a new technique called depth resolved magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Using a magnetic field 30,000 times as strong as the earth’s, computers can track the pattern of atomic nuclei of key chemicals in the body without cutting open the patient or inserting any probes. Therefore, a complete analysis of the human heart could be done without any surgical technique.

Times Have Changed
I hope you enjoyed this look back as much as we did. In 1985, the rumor of the day was that IBM was going to release a new, high-end PC that would have 256K of memory and a 20, or “possibly” a 30 megabyte hard drive and color graphics. Times have definitely changed!

Daniel Burrus, one of the world's leading technology forecasters, business strategists, and author of six books
Copyright 2005 Author retains copyright. All Rights Reserved.

Category: Futuring, Demographics, Generations
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