Remembering 1995

[terse]

Earlier today, I happened across an essay written in 1995 by Niklaus Wirth, creator of the Pascal programming language among other things. It started me off thinking about 1995 and what the computer world was like at the time (almost 30 years ago ).

* No wifi. The 802.11 standard that was the basis of wifi as we know it today wasn't established until a couple of years later.

* The World Wide Web was still quite new and small. The specs for the HTML markup language were published in 1991, and Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser appeared in 1993.

* PCs were using Windows 95 and Macs were using System 7.5 (or thereabouts). The first Palm PDA handheld device was still a year away.

* Dial-up modems and floppy disks were still a thing (even though the disks weren't floppy any more).

* The Mac laptop of the time weighed 7.3 pounds and was 2.3 inches thick.

* The first commercially available cameraphone was still 5 years off.

* Although the web existed at the time, the online world was still dominated by pay-to-play services like CompuServe, America Online, Genie, and Prodigy, where you were charged by the minute for your connection time. (Doom-scrolling was not yet a thing.)

* I'd been a technical writer for tech companies and computer magazines for 10 years or so. I was wired in to the tech world and knew a fair amount about the hardware and software of the time and how it worked. Today I know a bit, but almost all of what I knew then is useless. And I don't miss it, either.

 

[terse]

If anyone's interested, the essay by Niklaus Wirth is here. But if you don't want to read the whole thing, the part that got me to hunt it up is this:

5. The belief that complex systems require armies of designers and programmers is wrong. A system that is not understood in its entirety, or at least to significant degree of detail by a single individual, should probably not be built.​

6. Communication problems grow as the size of the design team grows. Whether they are obvious or not, when communication problems predominate, the team and the project are both in deep trouble.​

7. Reducing complexity and size must be the goal in every step—in system specification, design, and in detailed programming. A programmer's competence should be judged by the ability to find simple solutions, certainly not by productivity measured in “number of lines ejected per day.” Prolific programmers contribute to certain disaster.​

I love "number of lines ejected per day."

 

[RoseCat]

The first Palm PDA handheld device was still a year away.

I remember getting one in the early 2000s, and thinking it was so cool and high tech.

 

[Disastrous Wolf 7126]

‘95 is like 200 years ago technology wise!
It’s amazing how much change we’ve lived through,

 

[rizole]

I love "number of lines ejected per day."

During our teenage years the number of connections between neurons in our developing brain are culled and lost making the brain more efficient and betterer at thinky stuff. I imagine it's the same principle.

A programmer's competence should be judged by the ability to find simple solutions

I wrote an automated script last week which only had 4 instructions in it. Simplest thing I've written and I was quite pleased with myself.
Turns out I'd missed a key requirement, had to do a quick rethink and managed to collapse 3 steps in to one. That simplification speeded up the script execution from several seconds down to milliseconds. No one will ever know except me. It's another principal of hardware and software I guess. It's doing it's job well when no one notices it's doing anything at all.

 

[rizole]

5. The belief that complex systems require armies of designers and programmers is wrong. A system that is not understood in its entirety, or at least to significant degree of detail by a single individual, should probably not be built.

Reminds me of this xkcd comic.

 

[rizole]

(even though the disks weren't floppy any more).

When teaching basic computing in the early 00's I got bored of explaining why floppy disks are called floppy so I started breaking disks open and handing around the floppy, inside bit, for people to look at. Music on vinyl was still a working format back then and the analogy worked well. Floppy disks are read and written to on a magnetized surface so throw in an audio tape analogy and Bob's your uncle.

 

[Starzee]

Earlier today, I happened across an essay written in 1995 by Niklaus Wirth, creator of the Pascal programming language among other things. It started me off thinking about 1995 and what the computer world was like at the time (almost 30 years ago ).

* No wifi. The 802.11 standard that was the basis of wifi as we know it today wasn't established until a couple of years later.

* The World Wide Web was still quite new and small. The specs for the HTML markup language were published in 1991, and Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser appeared in 1993.

* PCs were using Windows 95 and Macs were using System 7.5 (or thereabouts). The first Palm PDA handheld device was still a year away.

* Dial-up modems and floppy disks were still a thing (even though the disks weren't floppy any more).

* The Mac laptop of the time weighed 7.3 pounds and was 2.3 inches thick.

* The first commercially available cameraphone was still 5 years off.

* Although the web existed at the time, the online world was still dominated by pay-to-play services like CompuServe, America Online, Genie, and Prodigy, where you were charged by the minute for your connection time. (Doom-scrolling was not yet a thing.)

* I'd been a technical writer for tech companies and computer magazines for 10 years or so. I was wired in to the tech world and knew a fair amount about the hardware and software of the time and how it worked. Today I know a bit, but almost all of what I knew then is useless. And I don't miss it, either.

My dad worked for IBM for 36 years. We had one of the first personal computers and used Prodigy. Years later, when I bought my first Mac he clutched his chest. He referred to it as a “toy computer.

 

[MsDee]

Ahhhh… memories… I took Pascal in college.

I retired from a 30-year career in IT a little over a year ago. 1995 scared the daylights out of me as I didn’t know if I couldn’t ”keep up”. Somehow I embraced the changes and managed to evolve and embrace change.

Back in 1995, I was the only woman at a Novell conference in Minneapolis. I will always remember the moment when a guy in an elevator there told me, “You don’t look like a nerd”.

Technology came together with my photography passion when digital cameras came out. I still have my first one, an Epson 850z - just bought myself a new (old model) Sony 7ii for Christmas

 

[terse]

“You don’t look like a nerd”

And was that a compliment or not?

 

[terse]

No one will ever know except me.

And possibly some future IT archaeologist digging through the digital potsherds.

(EDIT: I expect IT archaeology to become a course of study for advanced degrees sooner or later.)

 

[terse]

just bought myself a new (old model) Sony 7ii for Christmas

That'll be fun. I used to have a Sony NEX-7 mirrorless, and I loved being able to swap lenses, but what I miss the most from it is the eye level viewfinder.