When I was little there were things in science fiction that I really thought would happen. Like, but the year 2000 we would all be wearing shiny suits, and eating food pills!
I also thought we’d all be speaking on video phones and flying around in spaceships. Well, not a lot of that has happened! We don’t wear shiny suits (well apart from Jonathan Ross), we don’t eat food pills and the great majority of us don’t fly around in spaceships. We do, however, have the video phone, sort of. When I was little it was the stuff of dreams; now we just switch on our computers, turn on Skype or MSN and chat to our friends around the world, face to face, and free.
When I think how things have changed just in my lifetime it amazes me. What will things be like when Isla is my age – how will things have changed by then?
When I was small, my parents listened to records on a turntable
– since then we have had tapes, cd’s, mp3’s. I listened to music and stories on a walkman, now Isla listens on an iPod!
TV was non-existent when I was growing up in Malawi, and when we finally did get one there it was only with a video player. When we got back to UK, TV was a huge novelty. We had a TV and a video in Scotland, and technology didn’t really change for quite a long time.
There were people who had satellite TV back then, but I don’t think it was really worth what they paid for it then. Now satellite TV is commonplace, with boxes with built-in hard drives – Sky + - TV has never been so cool!
It wasn’t until after we moved to France that dvd’s appeared. We had come to France with a pile of videos, knowing that if we wanted to buy any new ones, we’d have to ask other people to buy them, as even internet shopping wasn’t common then.
Now we have dvd’s, we can buy them almost anywhere as they are multi language, and if you have a multi region player you can get them from anywhere in the world. Things have gone even further now with blu-ray (not really sure what that is) and you can even watch video files on your computer or your iPod!
Cameras have changed too – my mum and dad had 35mm cameras when I was smaller, and in fact when I started to own cameras they were still using the same type of film.
Now I have a great digital camera, and film is nowhere to be seen!
Computers too have changed beyond all recognition. When I was small we had a ZX Spectrum 16k.
You attached a tape recorder to the computer, and all the games and programmes were on the tapes! You could also type in lots of garbage and end up with a square on your screen – you could change the colour of the square and if you were really clever you could make the square stripy! This was cool!
We didn’t get another computer for a long time. Eventually we bought one from my dad’s office which was an Amstrad 286 I think, with Windows 3.1.
We thought it was great! The next one was a 1gb computer with Windows 95 – it was state of the art for a little while. What makes me laugh is that now my phone has a larger memory than that!!
Which brings us rather neatly onto mobile phones, whilst skipping our more recent computers which aren’t that interesting because they’re modern with Windows XP.
The first mobiles I saw were massive! You had to lug a massive battery pack around and the only place they were really useable was the tops of hills!
Now they’re small and funky, with built in cameras, mp3 players and massive memories! You can send video messages, picture messages and sound clips to people.
I also thought we’d all be speaking on video phones and flying around in spaceships. Well, not a lot of that has happened! We don’t wear shiny suits (well apart from Jonathan Ross), we don’t eat food pills and the great majority of us don’t fly around in spaceships. We do, however, have the video phone, sort of. When I was little it was the stuff of dreams; now we just switch on our computers, turn on Skype or MSN and chat to our friends around the world, face to face, and free.When I think how things have changed just in my lifetime it amazes me. What will things be like when Isla is my age – how will things have changed by then?When I was small, my parents listened to records on a turntable
– since then we have had tapes, cd’s, mp3’s. I listened to music and stories on a walkman, now Isla listens on an iPod!TV was non-existent when I was growing up in Malawi, and when we finally did get one there it was only with a video player. When we got back to UK, TV was a huge novelty. We had a TV and a video in Scotland, and technology didn’t really change for quite a long time. There were people who had satellite TV back then, but I don’t think it was really worth what they paid for it then. Now satellite TV is commonplace, with boxes with built-in hard drives – Sky + - TV has never been so cool!It wasn’t until after we moved to France that dvd’s appeared. We had come to France with a pile of videos, knowing that if we wanted to buy any new ones, we’d have to ask other people to buy them, as even internet shopping wasn’t common then.
Now we have dvd’s, we can buy them almost anywhere as they are multi language, and if you have a multi region player you can get them from anywhere in the world. Things have gone even further now with blu-ray (not really sure what that is) and you can even watch video files on your computer or your iPod!Cameras have changed too – my mum and dad had 35mm cameras when I was smaller, and in fact when I started to own cameras they were still using the same type of film.
Now I have a great digital camera, and film is nowhere to be seen!Computers too have changed beyond all recognition. When I was small we had a ZX Spectrum 16k. You attached a tape recorder to the computer, and all the games and programmes were on the tapes! You could also type in lots of garbage and end up with a square on your screen – you could change the colour of the square and if you were really clever you could make the square stripy! This was cool!We didn’t get another computer for a long time. Eventually we bought one from my dad’s office which was an Amstrad 286 I think, with Windows 3.1.
We thought it was great! The next one was a 1gb computer with Windows 95 – it was state of the art for a little while. What makes me laugh is that now my phone has a larger memory than that!!Which brings us rather neatly onto mobile phones, whilst skipping our more recent computers which aren’t that interesting because they’re modern with Windows XP.
The first mobiles I saw were massive! You had to lug a massive battery pack around and the only place they were really useable was the tops of hills!Now they’re small and funky, with built in cameras, mp3 players and massive memories! You can send video messages, picture messages and sound clips to people.You can do your email, watch films, listen to music all on one little piece of kit. How cool is that!
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