The gaming world

So reading about the history of video games really took me back. I was born during the start of the Atari era. In fact, I still have that same Atari and about 20 games. My family and I will break it out once in awhile for old times sake. And my favorite game of all is on the first Nintendo.......Super Mario Brothers. In fact, once they started coming out with all the other systems I got so tired of trying to learn the new controllers and such that I gave up and went back to the familiar Nintendo. That makes me wonder if that's a sign of how I'll handle all the other new technology in the future. I'll probably be one of those in my mid-forties with the same phone and same computer I have now. (Okay not really......like my equipment can hold up for that long!) I won't be given a choice but to figure out something new. But hey, I'll always have my familiar Atari and Nintendo to go back to! Here's a little blip I found on a website that I found interesting. If you find it interesting as well go to the website. There's amazing information about the history of video game consoles and games all the way up to what's in store. Some pretty neat stuff!

By Leonard Herman, Jer Horwitz, Steve Kent, and Skyler Miller:
In 1949, a young engineer named Ralph Baer was given an assignment to build a television set. He wasn't supposed to build just any television set, but one that would be the absolute best of all televisions. This was not a problem for Baer, but he wanted to go beyond his original assignment and incorporate some kind of game into the set. He didn't know exactly what kind of game he had in mind, but it didn't really matter because his managers nixed the idea. It would take another 18 years for his idea to become a reality, and by that time there would be other people to share in the glory, like Willy Higinbotham, who designed an interactive tennis game played on an oscilloscope, and Steve Russell, who programmed a rudimentary space game on a DEC PDP-1 mainframe computer. And then there was also Nolan Bushnell, who played that space game and dreamed of a time when fairground midways would be filled with games powered by computers.
Today, with interest in classic games gaining steam once again, players of video games are reminded of the rich history of the industry. Crave's Asteroids 64 is a modern version of a game that came out in 1979. And the original Asteroids was merely an updated version of Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space, which was really a jazzed-up copy of Steve Russell's Spacewar. Space Invaders, Centipede, Frogger, and Pong are once again on store shelves, and Pong is but a polished variant of the game Willie Higinbotham displayed on his oscilloscope.
The history of video games is not just about people. It's also about companies and ironies. Atari was an American company with a Japanese name, and the Japanese company Sega was started by an American. Magnavox, the company that started it all, is owned by Phillips, a company that is over a century old, and Nintendo, the company that made video games popular again, is just as old. And who would have ever thought Sony, the company that invented all types of electronics, from transistor radios to video recorders, would release a video game console that would become its top-selling product of all time?
In today's world, where video games are often cited as a source for teenage violence, it's interesting to see that the first home console also had a light rifle as an optional peripheral.
The world of video games continues to evolve. By reading about the past, perhaps you'll also get a glimpse of the future.

http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/video/hov/

Technology Creation

In the second chapter of the our text book when it began discussing the creation of the telephone and then into the other technologies, I really started wondering how much technology has helped our economy over the past 20 years pertaining to the job market. I used to manage a U.S. Cellular store for 3 years and just in that time span our store created well over 10,000 new jobs in Missouri alone. From a sales consultant to tech operators.

My father was a technical support specialist for Empire for many years and he was constantly having to go to new seminars and such to stay on top of all the new technology coming about. I had to do the same being in cell phone sales.....learning the new phones coming out, the new software (Blackberries were a pain to learn!), and the new items put on the phones. It's constantly changing in the world of technology and all I can say is how wonderful I think it is bringing in billions and billions of jobs to our economy in the past 20 years. Now people just have to worry about keeping up with the changes and not fall behind.

My children are 5 and 3 and I wonder what technology they will have the pleasure of experimenting with when they are my age. They'll probably wonder what a VCR or DVD is and who know, maybe even cell phones will be replaced by then. My only worry is will my children be able to communicate the right way or will face-to-face communication be a thing of the past? I don't think it will be entirely, but even families nowadays talk to each other less than they did in the early 80's. When it comes to technology there are a lot of pros and cons to consider but in the long run I think the pros will far outweigh the bad. I look forward to reading more about where our technology began and where it will be going!