Blown away by modern technology... please explain.

I was talking to my lad about this the other day....

I explained that my first computer was a ZX81. He just about bought that it needed to be plugged into the telly (although the concept of black and white TV boggled his mind).

Loading games from a cassette player made sense (once I’d explained what a cassette was).

However, when I explained that the ZX81 had only 1k of memory he decided I was taking the piss.

 

I think we're heading back to Roswell now.
I'm currently reading the book "The Day After Roswell" by Philip Corso, he was in the US army in the 40s, 50s and 60s and was made responsible for the analysis of the bits and pieces found after the Roswell crash in 1947.
The things they found (apparently) led to the development of night vision, laser, fibre optics, micro miniature electric circuitry and chips, kevlar, and possible mind control over solid objects, i.e. the craft.
The fast forward into today's world many people say is a result of what was developed after Roswell. Now whether you believe in Roswell is your prerogative but I do.

 

We all know that a computer stores data as 1s and 0s. At a very basic level, there are billions of tiny transistors that store a charge. These transistors usually store a single bit of data (a 1 or a 0 - or charged and uncharged). There are some now that can store up to 3 bits per transistor, but not very common still.

These transistors are also getting smaller, which allows them to fit more into the micro SD card. There will be anywhere from a few billion, up to a few trillion transistors, in a modern Micro SD card.

 

I still can’t fathom how carrier pigeons know their way round. Witchcraft

 

I got into IT 22+ years ago. I am supposed to know lots of cool stuff, but strangely I still think of it as my 'new career'. Probably due to the change, which is constant. Certain things still baffle me, and as per the OP the size of storage is one of them. I had a Commodore Vic20 as a kid, but I still remember the guy at Staples shaking his head and laughing when I bought my first proper PC in 1997 ....... "Why the hell is anyone ever going to need 2.1GB of storage?" he said. Same PC had 32MB Ram. I dual booted Windows 95 and NT4 Server on it.

But the thing I have never got my head around, even though I have a little network background on my CV...........

I am on the phone to relatives in Canada. I email them a family pic as we talk. They receive it at the moment I click send. Now I get that it transfers from my laptop to my router fairly quick. And my router sends it down the road to some BT Exchange. Which cleverly knows via DNS where the next hop is. And so on. But it still has to traverse the Atlantic and than find it's way into my Aunt's house. All this in the time it takes to click 'send'. And that I can never get my head around.

 

Although it doesn't seem to work the same with Nigeria. I paid a nice gentleman a healthy deposit in return for a juicy bank transfer. It must be 2 years since he clicked 'send' and it is still in transit.

 

Cave paintings, how the chuff.........

 

My first computer was a Acorn electron CPU running at about 1.5mhz & 32kb of ram. Oh lordy.

 

And I chuffin loved it.

 

All of this progress and some folk still believe in stuff like Roswell! Mind boggling.

 

The slowest part of the connection will be your link to the Exchange (and theirs too). One of the transatlantic cables has a bandwidth of 60TB/s - or roughly a million times more than the basic Virgin Broadband.

 

Don't get me started on the so called moon landings, pfffft

 

The system I worked on controlled all the underground conveyor belts, bunkers and alarms etc in a pit....