ChatGPT’s Sora model created this nightmarish image of 1978 skinny Steve standing on the University of Colorado Campus. Original photo by Barbara Mackinder, © 1978.
I’m sorry about the title of this first LifeBits post being a reference to a Grateful Dead song. Well, maybe I’m not sorry, because it has been a strange time travel trip from the late 1950s till now.
Sure, there have been equally dramatic changes in other parts of our daily lives. But none of those changes have had as much of an impact on my life as those that occurred in the technological realm.
Here’s a quick review of that life: Born in 1957 exactly twelve days before the first earth-orbiting satellite — Sputnik 1 — was launched. Dad was a former Korean War Army radioman turned airline mechanic working on radio, navigation, and electronics on the big piston engine propeller airliners of the era, and an amateur (i.e., “ham”) radio operator for most of his life, so I grew accustomed to the smell of solder and hot vacuum tubes while I was still in diapers.
Dad’s interest in technology and science rubbed off on me in childhood and into my teens, as I became fascinated with the US space program, astronomy, computers (which at that time were big clunky affairs tended to by nerdy acolytes), rockets, chemistry, meteorology, and other topics. I also read way too many science fiction books, and watched TV shows like “Lost In Space” and “Star Trek” religiously.
In high school I realized I’d better decide what career path I wanted to pursue and decided on engineering. Four years at the University of Colorado and a lot of hard work gained me a BSCE degree and a fiancée who was also an engineer. My career path after that point? Here’s about 45 years of work condensed down to a bullet list:
Engineer for a natural gas utility and pipeline company
Manager of a “special projects” team
Started an IT department at the pipeline company
Got outsourced to IBM, where I did IT support and project management
Went out on my own as a consultant while starting to write tech-oriented books
Taught business analysis classes around the USA
Became a tech blogger, had books published, started a new tech blog, retired
For each one of those bullet points, there are probably hundreds of stories. Some have already faded from memory, while others pop up while I reminisce about those years. There are also early experiences from my pre-college days that are worth laughing about! All of these stories, from toddler years to now, are the heart of LifeBits.
Today’s post is going to be different from the usual LifeBits fare in that I’m setting the stage for the more anecdotal stories I’ll be bringing you once or twice a week from the dusty archive of my brain. What do I mean by “setting the stage”? It means you get to see a list! Excitement abounds!
I asked my AI helper (ChatGPT) to create a list by decade of what the big changes in technology over the past 68 years:
📜 Timeline of Major Technological Advances (1957–2025)
🛰️ 1950s: The Dawn of the Space Age
1957 – Sputnik 1 launched — First artificial satellite; ignited the space race.
1958 – Integrated circuit invented — Laid the foundation for modern electronics.
1959 – First commercial nuclear power plant (U.S.) — Civilian use of atomic energy begins.
🚀 1960s: Exploration and Early Computing
1960 – First working laser built — Coherent light becomes a powerful new tool.
1962 – Telstar satellite — First live transatlantic TV broadcast.
1964 – Computer mouse invented — First step toward intuitive computing interfaces.
1965 – Moore’s Law proposed — Predicted exponential growth in computing power.
1969 – ARPANET launched — Predecessor of the internet.
1969 – Apollo 11 moon landing — First humans on the Moon.
💾 1970s: Microprocessors and Personal Computing
1971 – Intel 4004 microprocessor — Start of the microcomputer revolution.
1972 – First email on ARPANET — Digital messaging is born.
1975 – Altair 8800 released — Hobbyist computers become reality.
1976 – Apple I launched — Apple enters the PC market.
1976 – Laser printer introduced — Office printing goes high-speed.
1979 – Sony Walkman — Portable audio becomes mainstream.
🖥️ 1980s: GUIs, Mobile Phones, and Digital Storage
1981 – IBM PC released — Standardizes personal computing.
1983 – Cellular networks launched in U.S. — The mobile era begins.
1984 – Apple Macintosh with GUI — Popularized graphical interfaces.
1985 – C++ standardized — Pushes object-oriented programming forward.
1989 – GPS becomes operational — Geolocation becomes possible.
🌐 1990s: The Internet and Wireless Revolution
1990 – Hubble Space Telescope launched — A new eye in space.
1991 – Linux kernel released — Open-source software movement begins.
1991 – World Wide Web goes public — The internet becomes accessible.
1993 – Mosaic web browser released — Web becomes user-friendly.
1995 – Windows 95 released — Mainstream adoption of GUI computing.
1997 – Wi-Fi standard established — Wireless networking arrives.
1997 – DVD format introduced — A leap forward in media storage.
1998 – Google founded — Internet search redefined.
1999 – Bluetooth 1.0 launched — Wireless devices start talking.
📱 2000s: Mobile, Cloud, and Genetic Milestones
2001 – iPod launched — Digital music takes off.
2003 – Human genome mapped — Biology enters the digital age.
2004 – Facebook founded — Social media begins to dominate.
2005 – YouTube launched — User-generated video goes viral.
2007 – iPhone released — Smartphones revolutionize computing.
2008 – App Store and Airbnb debut — Mobile and sharing economies take root.
🤖 2010s: AI, Automation, and New Interfaces
2010 – iPad released — Tablets become practical and popular.
2010 – Siri released — Voice assistants enter daily life.
2015 – Tesla Autopilot launched — Semi-autonomous driving arrives.
2017 – iPhone X with Face ID — Face recognition and AR in your pocket.
2019 – 5G rollout begins — Next-gen wireless infrastructure.
🌟 2020s: AI, Space, and Post-Pandemic Innovation
2020 – mRNA COVID-19 vaccines deployed — New vaccine era begins.
2021 – James Webb Space Telescope launched — Seeing deeper into the universe.
2022 – DALL·E 2 and AI-generated art — Text-to-image AI emerges.
2022 – ChatGPT launched — Conversational AI hits the mainstream.
2023 – Apple Vision Pro announced — Spatial computing begins.
2023 – GPT-4 released — Multimodal AI with image and text capability.
2025 – Humanoid robots enter commercial trials (projected)
2025 – Quantum computers surpass 1,000 qubits (projected milestone)
Got all of that? There WILL be a quiz. (Nahh, just kidding…)
From here on out — until I run out of personal recollections of how the world has changed, that is — each LifeBits post explores a way that my life intersected with modern technology.
Thanks for joining me on the journey! Since this is the first of many posts, be sure to hit that subscribe button below to be notified of all future fun. You can subscribe for free or choose to support this crazy effort at cataloguing our past by becoming a paid subscriber. Either way, it’s going to be an interesting ride.