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And the smart phone has more computing capacity than the first computer installed in my workplace in 1972. They had to add a climate controlled wing to the building to house it and all it really did was costing and inventory control.....even at that it did it poorly. We worried it was going to replace us when in fact they had to hire a few more people.As a fat old man, I can remember the days of carrying a beeper. Then came the cellphone. Because of the rate plans, many people kept their beepers, and used them with a cell phone. Alphanumeric beepers were sophisticated enough for messages to be sent. You got your messages on the pager system, then used the cell phone to return only the most important calls. Cell phones were charged with a flat fee just to have the phone turned on, then you still had to pay by the minute.
By 2001, the shift was to cellular phone only. Motorola stopped making beepers altogether. Soon thereafter, commercial beeper service disappeared. Cellular phone service contract rates were still very high, but people had become accustomed to using mobile phones. In that era, I was using a brand named Nextel, which allowed for cellular phone service, and a two way radio. Nobody needed to send a text message. All that they had to do was activate the Push To Talk button and talk to me in real time. I still have the pagers and Nextel radios sitting in my garage. Actually, I've still got a complete 800 mhz radio dispatch system in my garage. When armageddon occurs, I will power it up.
The year 2002 brought us the iconic Blackberry. The smartphone era began. Text, fax, web browsing........ it was better than sex. In 2007, Apple released the iPhone. 2008 brought the first Android in the form of the HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1. Today, children have smartphones with more computing power than The Moon Mission........ if you actually believed that man went to the moon with almost zero technology, then declared that there was no reason to keep going back, and hasn't been able to do anything remotely close to that for over half a century.
Vintage Technology has returned. Along with "vintage" pricing. When you roll the calendar back to The 80's, I cringe at how many thousands of 1980's dollars I spent for technology. Today, I can get a free mobile phone, and it only costs $20 a month. For less than an hour's wage, I have telecommunications. And it's only 1/3 of the cost of a landline telephone from The Phone Company. No wonder ATT stock keeps plummeting.
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