10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

[Ian S. King]

On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Huw Davies <
huw.davies at kerberos.davies.net.au> wrote:

>
> > On 30 Dec 2015, at 11:58, Ian S. King <isking at uw.edu> wrote:
>
> > But it is intriguing to see the computer as pop-culture artifact within a
> > broader grouping of like artifacts.  (You're welcome, Jay.) In my
> academic
> > work, I use the term 'consumer computer' rather than 'personal computer'
> > because the latter term is so overloaded and controversial.
>
> Great terminology. Can I have permission to use it too :-)
>

Citation is the sincerest compliment.  :-)

>
> > I do have to say, though, that in the '80s many if not most phones had
> > transitioned to touch-tone 'dialing' (what a delightfully archaic term!).
> > Nit picked.  — Ian
>
> Not in Australia where the article was written. Government regulations
> meant that phones still had dials and modems were both hard to get and very
> expensive.
>
>
> Ah, good point.  And to hie back to an earlier part of the thread, when I
worked for Pacific Telecom in the early 1990s, there was still a crossbar
exchange in Forks, Washington.  Also in the PTI world was a very modern ESS
(the model escapes me) that replaced an old system that could not keep up
with regional growth.  As a result, the rather small town of Kalispell,
Montana enjoyed high-speed data services superior to anything I could get
in the Portland/Vancouver area!



-- 
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu>
Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical
Narrative Through a Design Lens

Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org>
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org>

University of Washington

There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."