Question:
ICT in the home ? How was it limited 30/20 years ago ?
HalfWit
2011-10-29 05:00:11 UTC
How was ICT limited in homes 30 years ago ? This is for my AS coursework in college. How has there been changes occurring to effect the way we live our lives now ? Please consider leisure, entertainment, running the house (bills) and communication. If anyone is a little older now please tell me how things used to be ? :)
Three answers:
2011-10-29 05:10:26 UTC
Is ICT "Information and Communication Technology"?



Can you explain your question a little more please? What do you mean by "limited"?



If I said, "there were no mobiles, no internet, and all communication was done either by landline telephone or letter/postcard" would that answer your question? Of course, we had televisions, video recorders and computers (that loaded games on tape cassette!) I think people used to hang out more, too: life's become more solitary - people spending hours and hours online, on facebook, or texting - rather than meeting their mates and girlfriends for walks, sport, down the pub, activities and hobbies like we used to in the old days.



Also: TV only had 4 channels, so everybody always watched the same things and talked about that the next day. Channel hopping was limited. TV ended around midnight. Teletext was used the way people now use google. There's a lot more money around these days. And kids don't play out as much 'cos grownups have gotten scared - even though crimes against children are down. We used to walk everywhere, miles and miles, and because a lot of people didn't have cars you'd never expect to be given lifts as it seems a lot of young people do these days. Transport was cheap so days out on bus and train were affordable. Shopping wasn't the huge religion it is today.



The main thing though is the proliferation of the computer. Imagine a world without laptops! Imagine no internet, no email, no facebook. Imagine a computer being nothing more than a couple of games of pacman with your mates.



Ee, it were grand...
?
2011-10-29 06:24:16 UTC
Well 30 years ago, 1981computers were rather limited. There was a proliferation of 8bit home computers with very limited capabillities. In terms of memory this would have been around 16Kbytes -64kbytes. Todays machines have Gbytes i.e. about 100,000 more. Storage was generally provided by an audio casssette drive & loading programs was a slow and hit & miss process. Graphics capabillites were limited by small memories these machines had & they mostly would have been connected to a small TV set via a UHF modulator producing a very grainy image. The thing with these machines was they easy to program & play with & a lot of fun. That is something that has been lost.



In terms of entertainment the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was probably about the most popular with classics like Pac Man & Manic miner. To do something a bit more useful the BBC Micro would have been the best option. There were basic word processing packages available for these machines & you could use dot matrix or daisy wheel printers.



By 20 years ago (1991) the 8bit machines & subsequent generation of 16bit home computers such as Amiga & Atari ST had vanished & had been replaced by souless cream coloured IBM PC /Compatible clones from the likes of Amstrad. By this time dedicated monitors would have been normal. Memory sizes had increased to 512K - 1Mb. Whilst windows wasn't commonly used with packages like GEM (windowing environment) you would recognise them as a PC & software was available to do common business tasks such as word processing, spreadsheets etc.



In terms of things that have had an impact since on how we live the internet, communications & mobillity are probably things the have made the biggest changes.
2014-08-30 21:41:27 UTC
Hello,

I found a free download of Pacman Original here: http://j.mp/1vX08ik



it's the full version, avaiable for free! very fast to install

You should check out Pacman Original right now. It would definitely bring back all your childhood memories.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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