This year we will be busy on our anniversary so I decided to write the post a little early. On June 1st, we will have been married 25 years! I thought I would focus my writing this year on comparing technologies then and now.
1986: We were excited to get our first VCR and thought we were so naughty to buy that before we bought a washer and dryer.
2011: Today we have multiple DVRs and a washer and dryer, though Alan doesn't seem to know the location of the washer or dryer. That's OK. Priscilla can't find the DVRs.
1986: One of our first purchases was a CD player so we could listen to Huey Lewis and the News, Cyndi Lauper, Billy Idol, and The Pretenders.
2011: Priscilla still listens to those groups on her iPod nano, well except Huey Lewis. She's not that square.
1986: Our wedding photos were analog.
2011: Alan just got a 12.1-megapxiel digital camera with 12x optical zoom, wide angle equivalent to a 25-mm lens, 3-inch 460K-pixel LCD, and a built-in GPS.
1986: Our wedding video was analog.
2011: Today our video camera is an iPhone that does 720p HD and 30 frames per second.
1986: Priscilla came home from work one day shortly after the wedding to discover a long coax cable snaking from the living-room TV, down the hallway, into the office, and attached to a 1-bit digitizer connected to the RS-422 port of a MacPlus.
2011: Alan still engages in strange projects involving long coax cables, serial ports, and obscure contraptions from RadioShack.
1986: Alan used the 1-bit digitizer to grab individual frames from our wedding video to make digital "photos"!
2011: Today we have to think about what 1-bit actually means... :-)
1986: We had no way to send emails to our family on our honeymoon.
2011: These days lots of relatives send us email, too many emails. Just kidding!
1986: In theory we could have sent AppleLink emails to our co-workers, if we could have found a computer to use.
2011: Our co-workers today use iChat and WebEx.
1986: We would have had to use a hotel phone or pay phone to call relatives on our honeymoon, if we had wanted to call them, which we didn't. We were a little busy. :-)
2011: These days we travel with two iPhones, two iPads, and a MacBook Air. We still don't call relatives, though.
1986: No Google maps. No Google. No Web!
2011: What, no 3G, no WiFi!? (while traveling to 3rd-world countries, such as Indiana). We are lost!
1986: AppleTalk, of course, some IPv4, no IPv6.
2011: Priscilla: "Are we ready for IPv6 day?" Alan: "Yawn."
1986: No Twitter! No Facebook!
2011: Priscilla: "Argh!" Alan: "Yawn."
1986: No digital toys for the bedroom.
2011: Still no digital toys for the bedroom, just digits, decimal and hexadecimal, and no yawing, hopefully.
1986: No blog posts.
2011: Lots of blog posts. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
well rats in my inexperience with blogging I wrote a big old message and then tried to post it only to find I was lost in Google land somewhere.
ReplyDeleteI think my highlighted entries of the long post were being without my children at your wedding and how I enjoyed your wedding and the reception.
Alan hiding the afikomen in the oven mitt
Alan arranging to hide us all upstairs in the the Ashland house while he had Priscilla out to French dinner! Dawn was there too, and if i am not wrong, it was my first road trip with Baby Katie!
we've had such lovely gatherings at your pretty house. It has made Oregon seem much less far away
I remember when you moved, you were going to become an ISP - my understanding of that acronym was "In Store Processor". I wondered how you would do that since you had no store. (it referred to the windows pc people were just starting to put on the network with the point of sale system)
We have a lot of images of Worland Family gatherings, thanks to the photography of Alan and making them available by Priscilla
I look forward to the pictures from this road trip!
Congratulations and much love, Sister Sally
Thank you, Sally. Blogger (the Google service I use) is quite horrid, eh? I think it helps if you sign into Google before you compose your comment. (Note the Sign In link at the top of this page.) Then it knows you are using that profile and you can just click Post Comment when you are finished writing. It was great having you at our wedding, Sally! And so much fun having you and your daughters at so many other family gatherings, past and future. <3
ReplyDeleteI remember the first time I went to your house in Cupertino, I was highly impressed by the technology! That a computer could make the sounds of the Beach Boys come from some quite fancy speakers! I was really impressed. And I loved hearing about your "Send a fax from the beach" party, wish I could have been to that.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember when I first met Alan, but I do remember when he first came to my apartment in Slummerville. He was with an MIT friend, and I could tell he was just BURSTING with pride to introduce his fiancee, who was not only a tech head but also gorgeous!
Happy 25th, both of you!
Love this post, Priscilla! Very fun... and I'm most impressed by the camera Alan is traveling with!
ReplyDeleteAll the best, and here's to another fabulous 25 years!
Blessings,
Liz, The Good Raised Up
Thank you. I guess some people are having a hard time posting. Well rats as Sally and Charlie Brown would say. If you sign in at the top first, it should work, but that's what engineers always say. It should work. Well, thanks for trying! xoxoxoxoxo
ReplyDeleteFrom Cedric, who ran into Blogger evilness and couldn't post...
ReplyDeleteBeing the wedding limo driver, I remember our fellow MIT classmates being the maker of things to booby-trap the car. And the high tech themed parties that the two of you threw were always one of the highlights of the year. I especially remember the GPS party.
Best wishes for your 25th. I know you two will enjoy it.
Cedric
1986: Terms of what?
ReplyDelete2011: Word count for Blogger terms of service: 2101 words, or 13479 bytes, or nearly one quarter of the entire address space of Alan's 6502-based Ohio Scientific computer.
While my memory of the wedding seems to be a bit fuzzy, I remember having a great time with Alan, Cedric, and Steve. And I certainly remember how happy Alan was with the prospect of sharing his life with Priscilla. Congratulations on reaching your 25th! I hope you have something special planned. Does the time fly by for you too? I can't believe this year is our 10 year anniversary.
We like having Alan as part of our family! Congratulations on 25 years!
ReplyDeleteRachel
Love the picture of Alan with camera. He is definitely one of the most interesting people I've ever known! (So is Priscilla, of course!)
ReplyDelete25 years is a huge milestone. I congratulate you both! I look forward to the next 25. You inspire us all. May your days be filled with cute discussions about ipv6, more exciting talks of genomics, shared 'awe' filled moments of natural wonders and global change through art. Jim
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on this milestone! I know I don't know you two well, hardly at all, really, but I from what I knew in the classroom ( and from the blog posts ), Priscilla is a very interesting person with a great sense of humor. I can only assume the same of Alan.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting married this July and it's inspirational to see couples hit this milestone...
//end awkward comment
Thanks for the comments, everyone, and congratulations, Cole!
ReplyDelete