A Blast From the Past, Courtesy of Engadget

LOL: Engadget 1985.

One day in the future we’ll all work at 200MHz tower desktops with 9600 baud modems, but until then we’ll just have to keep dreaming.


Comments

Ginger

August 23, 2005
11:58 am

I know this is just going to make me look like the biggest idiot in the history of the world, but what size are the desktops and modems nowadays so I can compare and get the joke like everyone else?

Jason Lefkowitz

August 23, 2005
12:06 pm

Today when you buy a Pentium 4 from Dell, it typically runs at around 3000MHz.
For comparison, the computer I was running in 1985 (Tandy 1000 in the HIZZOUSE!!!) had a blazing speed of 4MHz.
And modems… does anyone even use modems anymore? They top out at 56,000 “baud” and have stayed there for a decade. My modem in 1985 was a 300 baud speed demon.

Jason Lefkowitz

August 23, 2005
12:08 pm

And I should mention — even if all the MHz and baud stuff is gobbledygook to you — click through to the story anyway and take a look at the pictures of the mobile phones and GPS units. You’ll get the joke 🙂

Brian Murphy

August 25, 2005
1:33 pm

Gee, Jason, I guess it really wasn’t that long ago when you first got onto Compuserve…..I remember the ole T-1000 and all the Sierra games…

Jason Lefkowitz

August 25, 2005
2:22 pm

My god! Sierra, there’s a blast from the past…
Games were better back when they came on nine floppy disks 😉

Sandy Smith

August 29, 2005
12:46 am

I still have a copy of “3D Ultra Pinball ‘Creep Night'” on my desk.