Before "Social Media" There Was..

Gone are the days when one merely picks up the telephone to call a friend. No! Now it cannot be that simple.

It all began with the nuclear-era fear of the 1960s Cold War when ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) set up a "network" (that was a new word back then) of interconnected computers which formed the first primitive backbone which has evolved into what we now call the Internet.

The first "personal computers" (back then that was also a hot new phrase) included RadioShack's TRS-80 - affectionately called "Trash 80" by geeks who were unhappy with its performance. I don't blame them: I remember TRS 80's data memory module consisted of an audio cassette player that recorded information onto the cassette cartridge in the form of a series of slow "beeps and boops" - an early form of data commands. Wow, we have come a long way!

"Chatting" with Kermit

When electronic communications barely evolved beyond a mere idea, I remember back in the "old days" of personal computing when geeks like my roommate Kathy used to chat with each other over 200 baud telephone connections using a green screen (command line) application called Kermit, whose connection was hosted by complex university computers connected to a VAX. And then Kermit connections got faster: 400 baud or more. Then there came V90 telephone line error correction modems. Ooooo, so techie!

Then came CompuServe, who opened a portion of the then still-nascent Internet to the general public. And after that, it was all history.

E-Mail. Wow!

For a while e-mail was all the hype. I used to spam people on CompuServe just to say "hi", and they would reply back to me giddy as a filly and so utterly thrilled that some stranger from a different part of the world had contacted them.

Nowadays we are inundated with thousands of unwanted spam e-mail messages automatically generated by spam e-mail robots ("spam bots") whose messages tout new careers in the logistics field, a new career as a secret shopper, Russian brides for our pleasure, or some concoction that will enhance our sexual prowess.

And then people were coining new words for the emerging technologies. The then US Senator Al Gore gave us the "information superhighway". There was "interfacing" of computers (and later people). "CRT" meant "cathode ray tube" which is a fancy word for what we now call a computer monitor.

The Latest In Communication Fashion

Given the miracles that modern technology has provided for us, on the web and on television we now see mentioned everywhere of the latest in technology fashion: Social Media.

Kids cross the street while text messaging and Twittering, completely oblivious to cars zooming past them. But somehow such nonchalance seems to be a common skill among the youth of today.

What'll they think of next?

- John

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