1970s 1980s

Cold War, Warm(ing) Computers

While the Soviet Union and it's satellite countries fumed and the Occident free-market countries growled back, an extrodinary information age was blooming. In the 1970s, computer science meant large mainframes in even larger data centers. The typical 1970 IBM mainframe had 500 KB of RAM, 233 megabytes of hard disk space in a strickly controlled (cooled) environment. Today, the smartphone is at least 1,000 times faster, and the most basic iPhone can store 80 times the data (and much cheaper than the approximately $6 million price tag).

I was a teenager ignoring most of this. Rather, I enjoyed baseball (and other sports), roamed freely the neighborhood with my friends, and did fairly well at school. Growing up in Robbinsdale (just north of Minneapolis) was mostly fun. My family and I watched Welcome Back Kotter & Kung Fu on the television, ate McDonald's debut breakfast service, and played football in the snow. I had it good.