Last Generation With No Internet

I was born in 1951. The first computer I used was in 1981 in the AF. Did not use any kind of computer, that I know of, prior to that. Is my generation the last to no have grown up with computers?

Personal computers didn't exist until the MITS Altair 8800 kit was introduced in 1975, and of course didn't become widespread for a number of years later. The Apple II and the Radio Shack TRS-80 came out in 1977 and the market really started to explode then, especially when software like the VisiCalc spreadsheet program from 1978 made them more practical for everyday use.

On the commercial side, time-shared main frame computers from IBM, etc., have been around since the 60's, becoming wide spread in the 70's, so whether your generation was the last to grow up without computers is debatable, depending on how you want to define "without". I suppose a case could be made that my generation, I was born in 1943, could be called the "last" as well, since even main frame access wasn't available until I was in my 20's, and the public Internet as we know it today didn't exist until 1991.

When I started college in the 70?s all papers were typed on a typewriter. When I completed my college ?career? in the 2000?s all my papers were done on a computer and digitally transferred to the professor. I think computers and the Internet have made things a bit easier in some ways but other ways not so much. Nowadays if the computer goes down at a business in most cases they cannot stay open. It also seems that the majority of folks you see now have their face glued to a phone or other device (me saying this while sitting at the YMCA with my face in my tablet).

Like Dutch, I was born in 1943. My first computer dealings were with the bombing/navigational (Bomb/Nav) system in the B-47, which was an analog computer, a much more sophisticated system developed from the "K" systems that were in the B-29. The Bomb/Nav system could actually connect with the autopilot to fly an aircraft to its destination (or target, when that was appropriate), and even automatically release bombs over the target, even compensating for winds. But it was huge, made up of servo mechanisms and gear trains, mostly.

My next computer experience, shortly after getting out of the AF, was with the telephone switching systems in the mid '60s, which were mostly large banks of relays and crossbar switches (also analog, of course). Then we got a small DEC computer to enhance certain operations and that, of course, was digital. In 1977 a friend got a TRS-80 Model I (the only model at that time) that ran programs off of cassette tapes, programmed in Basic. A year later I got one, too, and together we learned to disassemble software and program things with the assembler.

Personal Computers (PCs) became more popular, and in 1981 IBM usurped the "PC" label for their MS-DOS computer (I know, they didn't call it MS-DOS but it was).

But the above was after I "grew up." Still, computers were around (just not common) before I "grew up," so does that make us the last?

According to this page we are far from the last generation without computers:

https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm

Oldgator73 said:

According to this page we are far from the last generation without computers:

https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000984.htm

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Certainly there were computers and computer like devices long ago, but not readily available to the general public. So it really comes down to what I said in my first post above, "depending on how you want to define 'without'" is the key to answering your question.

Also born in '51.
A few of us carried TI pocket electronic calculators in school. The school hadn't yet had occasion to develop a policy on calculator use, and some teachers were quite disturbed by our "advantage".
A bit mischievous, I also carried a slide rule or abacus from time to time, just to see their reactions. The slide rule didn't cause a ripple. Most science and math teachers knew all about them. But that abacus...
Ejii, a foreign exchange student from Japan, got very excited when he saw me with the abacus. We'd have friendly competitions solving problems with it. Needless to say, I always lost.

I first used a full-fledged digital computer in 1969 at age 17, dialing into a GE timeshare system via a teletype terminal and an acoustic modem. So I guess I can say I "grew up" with digital computers.

Aside: There were no video screens. We'd hand-type our programs offline onto punched-paper tape using the teletype terminal. Then dial and log in, upload the program via the terminal's tape reader, and run it. Output would print to the terminal's printer. With CPU time measured in tens of dollars per second on that GE system, we learned to make our algorithms efficient. Inadvertently getting stuck in a loop could run up a bill over a hundred dollars in less than a minute.

I still have that calculator on my desk, and it still works. Here it is:

NY_Dutch said:

Certainly there were computers and computer like devices long ago, but not readily available to the general public. So it really comes down to what I said in my first post above, "depending on how you want to define 'without'" is the key to answering your question.

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That?s true. I don?t know if an adding machine was considered a computer but I guess I did know folks with calculators. I would imagine some folks in at least high school had calculators.

Abacus...

Willandgiselarv said:

Abacus...

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Slide rule. Bought my first calculator in 1972, and it wasn't cheap.

I am a bit younger than most of you, born in the late 60's, graduated highschool in the mid 1980's, just as personal computers were first showing up on the scene in schools with a few class rooms getting one per class of 20-25 students, though in no way like it is today, or for that matter was just a few years later.  I was one of the lucky kids to get some early exposure to computers starting when I was around 10-11 years old, the family (wholesale food distribution) business had an IBM mini computer in the late 1970's which was my first direct hands on experience with a "computer" it had a keyboard and a teletype printer interface, so that you you type to paper and then the computer would respond to paper, the thing was the size of a large desk, a year or so later it was replaced by another desk sized computer, this one with a small CRT screen built in (maybe 9 or 10 inch screen if memory serves), the keyboard was also built into the desk.  On it one could type cryptic file commands, and then the printer would spew out inventory lists, and price lists, it did not do much else, not even accounts receivable (that would be the next computer, which started to look somewhat modern with full size CRT screens, and keyboards one could move around, though those keyboards probably weighed 15 pounds or more).

Here is a picture I found online of those first 2 models of computers the family business had

https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en/record/2022608/TELE_TELE_IBM_2012_54001.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/38#/media/File:S38_I.jpg

The second one looks like a washing machine combo!

I was born early 60s and used a typewriter and then something called a Wang Computer which had the old floppy disks to store stuff.  So very very different from what we have today.

    My first experience with a computer was in 1965, my first year at university.  It was an IBM that was located in an air conditioned room and stood at about 10 feet, by 10 feet and 6 feet tall.  in order to communicate with the computer you had to use a computer language typed onto punch cards which were fed into a reader one card at a time.  I would guess that my smart phone is many time more powerful than that old beast, and it certainly is a lot faster and easier to communicate with. (Other than my phat fingers)
    As for the use of an abacus, we visited our daughter when she was teaching in Japan.  I went into the bank to cash some traveller's cheques, and the teller had a computer terminal at her station, but pulled out an abacus, and in seconds did up the complex calculations to exchange the yen traveller's cheques to American Dollars.  I wouldn't think you would see that type of proficiency today.

Ed

Somebody name the first game that had a computer chip in it. NO GOOGLING either 

Do you mean video game like space wars or pong, or do you mean handheld (ish) like Simon?

I mean the first game ever.

jackiemac said:

The second one looks like a washing machine combo!

I was born early 60s and used a typewriter and then something called a Wang Computer which had the old floppy disks to store stuff.  So very very different from what we have today.

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Yup word processors worked for them in the 80s...bought back Good memories thanks

Oldgator73 said:

I was born in 1951. The first computer I used was in 1981 in the AF. Did not use any kind of computer, that I know of, prior to that. Is my generation the last to no have grown up with computers?

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Likewise I am a 1951 model but got my start in computers in I think 1969/1970 in college.  Started using them big time in 1977.. But that was not the internet (A dedicated network).

There are a lot of folks who likely wish I was not as good at using that network as I was.. But then their mail comes "Care of the warden".

My Dad was a design engineer with Pratt and Whitney Aircraft and carried a slide rule to work in his shirt pocket every day. He was also quite the handyman and even got his general contractors license before he started building on to our house. When we went over to Tampa so he could take the state licensing exam, he bought the first hand- held calculator we had ever seen. All it could do was add, subtract, multiply and divide, but we thought it was just stupendous. This was around 1972.

Conquest2011 said:

Somebody name the first game that had a computer chip in it. NO GOOGLING either 

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It must have been an Adventure game.