Catapult Tech Solutions Blog

life before todays technology

Do You Remember Life Before Today’s Technology?

We have all found ourselves asking,” What did we ever do without my phones?” The truth is our smart phones have taken the place of so many things that we now consider obsolete. In fact, many young people today have no idea what you are talking about if you mention old technology. They look at you with disbelief when you explain life without today’s technology.

Technology advances every single day and in order to stay competitive, we all must stay up to date. This is especially important for businesses. At Catapult Tech Solutions, we keep up so you can skip that responsibility and take care of building your business. With Managed IT Services, we can let you know when it is time to upgrade, change, or replace what you are currently relying on for operations. In fact, we can even source all the options and give you just the information you need to make an informed decision.

Before we look ahead, let’s look at where we have been. Do you remember when we used to use these things?

With today’s technology there is no need for phone books

Chunky paperback directories included listings of all the phone numbers you could possibly need. There were the white pages for residential numbers and the yellow pages for businesses. They were actually delivered to our doors with each update! With the internet, we no longer need to look up numbers in a cumbersome book, but they do make a nice booster seat for a child on a chair!

Rotary telephones – wait, what?

Have you ever handed one of these to a very young child? It’s amazing that every single time, they seem to know just what to do with it. They turn the dials and hold the receiver to their ear. This is true, even though they have probably never seen one actually used. Telephones date back as far as 1844. The original phones could not be dialed at all, you had to ask an operator to connect you. Then the rotary phone came along and allowed more control. Soon, the rotary dial was replaced with push buttons. Then the wires were taken away with the advancement of the mobile phone. We all know how far the development of cellular phones has come all the way to a smart phone that is actually becoming a minicomputer! Cellular phones are so attainable and popular that now, a landline is becoming obsolete.

Pagers and Beepers are so out of sync with today’s technology

Originally pagers were developed in the 1950’s as a way to connect people quickly. They really did not become popular until the 1980’s. They were a precursor to the mobile phone. They were mobile, but they only provided one-way communication. They’d beep and then flash a phone number to call. (Thus, the Beepers label.) Pagers were often used by emergency services, doctors, safety personnel and anyone who needed to be reachable at all times. Later they became more common when employers wanted to keep tabs on their employees. The rise of the cellular phone and especially the smart phone, have led to a decline in pagers. The durability, resilience, and better coverage by these simpler devices has extended their lifespan.

Who needs personal digital assistants (PDAs) with today’s technology?

A PDA is the forefather of today’s smart phones. PDAs can do all those things that a dumb phone cannot. The have access to internet, word processing, touchscreen technology, and more. PDA’s were able to maintain popularity until the rise of the smart phone which put the cellular phone and PDA into one device that did even more!

VHS – Is that Very Hot Sound?

VHS came along in the 1980’s and allowed home video to be easily accessed. Small reels of magnetic tape were wrapped in plastic housing to bring you the joy of the latest blockbuster right to your home TV. It was so exciting! We can all remember a visit to the video rental store to borrow our favorite new release movie! Small camcorders could also record home movies to be played back on the TV. By 2008 DVD completely replaced VHS as the favored video format for recording and viewing our favorite films. But that was nothing compared to today’s technology.

Today’s technology is gender neutral, not a Walkman or Discman

Portable music player grew smaller and smaller over time to play the latest and greatest musical medium. Walkman played our cassettes and with the CD came the Discman. These handy devices that allowed us to take our music on the move with us have been phased out by digital streaming. No more skipping CDs as you ride your bike over a bump!

Portable DVD Players

Just like we wanted music on the go, we want movies on the go too! DVD players came along to solve this problem. These devices never gained complete widespread popularity. They were costly, large, fragile, and lacking in battery life. Streaming video has begun to take over the need for these devices.

Atari 

Now this is like ancient history! The ancestor of today’s modern gaming console, Atari was originally released in 1977. It was a home video game system connected to the TV and played on cartridges. Atari was not the first game console, but it is the most nostalgically remembered for its popular games like Pong and Asteroids. This early technology of gaming has been quickly replaced by advancing technology in gaming. Now, with today’s technology, we have handheld gaming systems, wireless systems played via the web, and devices that allow us to game with others across the world.

Film Cameras

Today we take hundreds and thousands of photos on our phone. We are snapping shots almost constantly. We no longer need to rely on purchasing rolls of film to put in our camera, battery power to run it, carefully counting the number of photos we have left to take and finding a local film shop to print the pictures to see them. Polaroid created the instant camera to allow us to immediately see and print our photos, but it wasn’t until digital cameras that we could see that shot before we took it and take as many shots as we want. Without these digital capabilities we would have never seen the dramatic growth of Facebook or Instagram!

Calculators

Calculators are still used in schools, but it is another piece of technology that has been moved to our phones. Even graphing calculator apps are available to allow our smart phones to do anything a calculator could do.

GPS

GPS navigation is yet another technology that has moved from its own device to our phones. Beginning with printing maps and driving directions off of the web on our computers, moving to a small separate device to program directions in our vehicle, to now having directions at our fingertips on our phone.

It is amazing to think that the mobile phone industry has been able to all of these resources and roll them into one smart phone! They are all at our fingertips, in a much smaller package, and with us just about wherever we go. With all the features combined into our cell phones, they are fabulous but they are also vulnerable.

Catapult Tech Solutions can help you set up, manage, and monitor cell phones for your business as well as all the other tablets, computers, and devcies. We can help you ensure that your online security is intact while your employees work remotely. We can help you decide about providing mobile devices to your employees or allowing them to bring their own. We can help you accommodate device updates when they are out in the field.

These are just a few of things that Catapult Tech Solutions can help guide your business through in the use of mobile devices. Use your device to contact us today!

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Catapult Technology Solutions

Catapult Technology Solutions

At Catapult Technology Solutions, we don’t believe in compromising the integrity or safety of your IT system - no matter the circumstances. We work to make your technology serve you in the most efficient, powerful manner. We place our priority on client relationships, not on turning a high profit. We’re here to maximize your current IT infrastructure, not drain your bank account. We’ll likely even lower your IT costs rather than raise them.