“Mr. Watson come here. I want you.” Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the Telephone would surely be shocked to see how far the first ever understandable spoken words on a telephone have brought us. For ninety years after its invention the telephone changed little in its basic form. A “phone” was used for communicating via spoken words to people who might be miles away from you. But, if you were miles away from a telephone you would be forced to resort to smoke signals and loud shouting.
Then in 1973, Martin Cooper developed what would become known as the “Cell Phone.” The cell phone was a radical new technology that would allow anyone to communicate with a traditional “land line” phone or someone else with a “cell phone.”
In the early eighties I remember my uncle bringing in a briefcase and making the startling claim that it was a telephone. It was an incredible innovation but impractical in many respects. The battery life alone would have had you sprinting from electrical outlet to electrical outlet to make a phone call of any length. The range was limited, the sound quality was dreadful and very few telephone companies had the capability of supporting them.
Then in 1973, Martin Cooper developed what would become known as the “Cell Phone.” The cell phone was a radical new technology that would allow anyone to communicate with a traditional “land line” phone or someone else with a “cell phone.”
In the early eighties I remember my uncle bringing in a briefcase and making the startling claim that it was a telephone. It was an incredible innovation but impractical in many respects. The battery life alone would have had you sprinting from electrical outlet to electrical outlet to make a phone call of any length. The range was limited, the sound quality was dreadful and very few telephone companies had the capability of supporting them.
The DynaTac 8000 was one of the first truly portable cell phones and despite all of its limitations and an almost $4000 price tag, had a waiting list in the thousands. With that kind of demand and interest, other companies and other models quickly began to be manufactured. The Cell Phone revolution began and continues to grow at an almost exponential rate to this very day.
At the same time cell phone technology was going through its birth pains and growth the personal computer was just coming of age. Computers were moving from being giant power gobbling machines that only interested large corporations, to nimble and powerful machines able to do new and interesting stuff. No longer just the domain of a few nerdy hobbyists’, the personal computer began to be very common in the average home. The new personal computer allowed the Average Joe access to incredible new functionality like Pong, Frogger and Spreadsheets. As the power of the personal computer became greater, the programs that the average person could run increased. Until soon, word processing, financial management and a whole world of entertainment became available to the home user. And, soon an entirely new paradigm to communication.
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