Gear Diary GD Quickie: Flashback to Grad School or “I Wrote My Thesis With That?” photo

Kayla’s rant about iPads and her description of college tech was striking to me. She ASSUMED (accurately) that anyone going to college these days has a computer. Yup, access to a computer isn’t a luxury for students these days, it is a necessity. (As she then goes on to point out, iPads, on the other hand, are luxuries.)

It got me thinking about my own college days. When I was working on my undergraduate degree we had a room in each dorm with four or five computers. For the most part they were used for math and science calculations rather than writing and it you wanted access to one you had to wait in line.

Six months after graduating from college I was in graduate school. By that time I had gone high-tech. Yup, no more typewriter for me! Instead I used this…

Gear Diary GD Quickie: Flashback to Grad School or “I Wrote My Thesis With That?” photo

Yes, the Brother. WP1!

Gear Diary GD Quickie: Flashback to Grad School or “I Wrote My Thesis With That?” photo Image captured from YouTube video

It was amazing(ly slow) and if you typed too quickly it just locked up until it caught up. Hard to imagine I wrote so many of my papers on it. Oh the times they are achangin’!

Tags:



Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him.
  • Joel McLaughlin

    Wow. I feel fortunate to have access to systems with Wordperfect on them! Even then I wrote my paopers in a wordprocessor….but they were just more than glorified text editors since most papers were printed on a Dot Matrix printer!

  • http://www.geardiary.com Douglas Moran

    I started writing my papers online around my junior undergrad year. I had to use vi on a UNIX system and the nroff text processing language at first, but even so it was a big improvement over typewriting, and a *huge* improvement over handwriting. Especially *my* handwriting.



2013 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT All About Value and Functionality

An automotive anniversary is quietly approaching, but I doubt anyone will notice. Of course I am not talking about the [...]

The Zooka Wireless Speaker Bar for Tablets and Laptops Review

This is our review of the Zooka. Before reading further please say that out loud five times fast. Now please [...]

Classic RPGs Wizardry VI, VII and 8 Come to GoG.com!

Wizardry 8

When you look back at many of the classic moments and structures in gaming, the name Wizardry comes up all [...]

G5 Entertainment Casual Games Land on the Windows 8 Store

G5 Entertainment Windows Store

G5 Entertainment is one of the premier casual game companies for iOS, and has made quite a splash on Android, [...]

Turn Off iMessage Before Switching Away from iOS

I ordered a new Lumia 928 yesterday, and am anxiously awaiting a shipping notification from Verizon. In the meantime, I [...]

Dungeon of Elements Game Launches Kickstarter Campaign

Dungeon of Elements

I continue to be amazed at the crazy-cool ideas that indie developers come up with. Years after being declared ‘dead’, [...]