I've been around for almost 60 years - so I thought I would see what all has been invented since I was born. Many of these things we take for granted now, but they're relatively new.
1. Unmanned aerial flight. These came into use during the Vietnam War, and we see them now being used as drones in the war in Ukraine.
2. Coronary bypass surgery. We take it for granted today that if we have a heart attack, we'll get a quick stent and be out of the hospital the next day, but this life-saving procedure didn't become a reality until 1967.
3. The smoke detector. An annoying beep that's saved countless lives, this little lifesaver wasn't invented until 1969. Now it's a requirement in all new construction in most areas of the country.
4. MRI. The magnetic resonance imaging machine is widely used in medicine today and is a go-to for finding cancer tumors and other problems in the human body. But this product wasn't used until 1973!
5. The barcode. That "bleep, bleep" that's created when the product purchased goes over the scanner at the self-checkout wasn't invented until 1974. There is scarcely anything sold today that doesn't have one of these on it.
6. The first supercomputer was installed in Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. It was called that because it could deal with a lot of data at a time.
7. The PC was introduced to the public in 1977, when Apple II, Commodore Pet, and Radio Shack's TRS-80 all hit the market, four years before IBM introduced its first "PC." While I owned none of these, I did own a Commodore Vic 20 way back in the day.
8. The Sony Walkman, a small portable cassette player, was introduced in 1979. People could carry around their favorite music!
9. The first computer virus was created in 1982. Rich Skrenta, 15, created an application called Elk Cloner as a prank, and it became the first virus to spread outside its home network. Elk Cloner spread via floppy disk and attached to the Apple OS II operating system. When users booted from the disk, Elk Cloner transferred to the computer's memory; any additional disks inserted without rebooting were also infected. On every fiftieth boot, the computer displays text written by Skrenta:
Elk Cloner: The program with a personality / It will get on all your disks / It will infiltrate your chips / Yes it's Cloner! / It will stick to you like glue / It will modify ram too / Send in the Cloner!
What a legacy to leave, eh?
10. Microsoft Word, the program few of us can do without these days, saw the light of day in 1983. It became a household name with the introduction of Windows 3.0 in 1990.
11. In 1986, the first LISTSERV came into being - also known as the electronic mailing list. How many email newsletters do you get?
12. In 1992, IBM introduced a weird little thing called the Simon. It wasn't sold in the US until 1994, and it was a commercial failure. It was also the world's first smart phone.
13. In 1998, the first piece of what would become the International Space Station was launched into the atmosphere.
Of course, there are thousands of other things that have been invented in my lifetime, although most build upon previous inventions. What invention would you consider to be the best in the time you've been on this Earth?
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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 748th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.
Cars that drive by themselves. That was on our list as kids. My parents didn't even have refrigerators when they were kids, let alone computers. They had ice chests then. Oh my, what's next?
ReplyDeleteHaving a powerful computer in my pocket that is also a camera, phone, calculator, my bank account, and many other things is my very favorite invention!
ReplyDeleteThe 20th century was certainly a time of incredible advances, of which I'd say the computer is the best, but thanks to human nature also the biggest curse. Give us enough time and we can take the best thing and find some way to muck it up.
ReplyDeleteThe pacemaker is high on my list of inventions. It keeps the Husband happy and well. Also up there is the personal computer. My first was a Kaypro. Wish I kept it, would look good as garden art.
ReplyDeleteMy first computer was a Windows 98-era Gateway. It took me forever to figure things out. I appreciate the coronary bypass especially. Cliff had to have a 4-way bypass in 2006, and I have considered all the time since then as his bonus years.
ReplyDeleteLots of interesting facts! My dad and a triple bypass and it gave him 10 years of life. I remember seeing a huge computer something at UCI back in 1968. It was in the math department because there was no computer science. I was on a field trip and still in Jr. High. All I know is that it allowed for testing and I hated test!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout out for the lowly smoke detector. In researching for my client, I discovered that at least two major retailers (Target and The Home Depot) sell them for less than $10. That's an incredibly reasonable investment in (as you pointed out) LIFE.
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