10 Tech Terms Millennials Don't Know
Some revered tech terms prompt nothing but puzzled looks from today's young professionals. Hint: Clones belong in Star Wars.
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"Hey, Grandpa, what's a baud?"
It's no secret that technology advances rapidly. A product, service, or spec that seemed cutting-edge a decade or two ago may appear quaint or even laughably outdated today.
Two examples: The first commercially successful portable computer -- the term "laptop" didn't apply yet -- was the 24.5-pound Osborne 1, which debuted in 1981 for $1,795, or roughly $4,700 in today's dollars. And the Apple Newton, one of the first handheld computers (or PDAs, if you prefer), had a then-impressive 336-by-240-pixel reflective LCD and (unreliable) handwriting recognition. It cost $700 when it began shipping in 1993.
Given the rapid pace of change, it's easy to see how quickly common tech terms -- words and phrases that a reasonably computer-literate person might use on a daily basis -- could be largely forgotten or obsolete within a generation. It's also reasonable to assume that many Millennials -- the generation born after 1980 but with no set chronological endpoint, according to Pew Research -- haven't heard of, or perhaps are only vaguely familiar with, tech terms from the 1980s or 90s.
(Other researchers place the Millennial Generation's end point in the early 2000s, but these start and stop dates are arbitrary. And there may very well be significant differences in the beliefs and attitudes of people born in the early 1980s and those born two decades later. Of course, we're discussing tech terms here, not whether an entire generation believes in God, supports same-sex marriage, or thinks gluten is inherently evil.)
Whatever their knowledge of bygone tech, Millennials are embracing today's social-oriented technologies. A March 2014 Pew Research study found that Millennials are eagerly adopting new technologies, including mobile devices and social media, and placing themselves at the epicenter of their own "self-created digital networks."
"Fully 55% have posted a 'selfie' on a social media site; no other generation is nearly as inclined to do this," the report states.
But despite their enthusiasm for social and mobile tech, 9 in 10 Millennials say people share too much of themselves online, a view that older generations hold with "similarly lopsided proportions," the report adds.
It's always perilous to stereotype an entire generation of people, of course, and it's likely that many tech-savvy Millennials who read InformationWeek are quite familiar with technologies and products that many of their peers don't know about.
Now explore 10 tech terms largely unknown to Millennials. Did we miss an example you have bumped up against? Add it in the comments section.
Today's Windows PC dates back to the original IBM PC, which debuted more than three decades ago in 1981. Microsoft made one of three versions of the Disk Operating System (DOS) for Big Blue's beige PC; Intel provided the 8086 microprocessor. In a shortsighted move, IBM allowed Microsoft to sell its own version of DOS to other hardware makers. The result: A market of IBM-compatible computers, or "PC clones," quickly sprang up. By the mid-80s, Microsoft and Intel had wrestled control of the PC platform from IBM, and the term "Wintel PC" supplanted "PC clone" in the 90s. As for IBM, it continued making PCs until it sold its personal computer division to Lenovo in 2005.
The terms "baud" or "baud rate" are rarely heard these days, but in the 1980s manufacturers used them to measure data transmission speeds of dialup modems. "Baud" describes the maximum oscillation rate of an electronic signal, according to TechTerms.com. If a signal changes 1,200 times per second, for instance, it's measured at 1200 baud. As modems gained the ability to transfer multiple bits per signal transition, the term "bits per second" began to replace baud in marketing nomenclature and is still used today -- think "megabits per second" (Mbit/s) -- to describe broadband speeds.
TV dial. Dialup modem. Dialing a phone. The term "dial" is still used in tech parlance by folks of a certain age, but its days are numbered. Dialup Internet access has largely been replaced by broadband, aside from an unlucky smattering of rural users stuck with the squawky modems of yesteryear. The channel-selection dial of the analog TV era is long gone, along with the "Don't touch that dial!" admonitions from TV pitchmen. Interestingly, some people still use the phrase "dial a number," even though rotary dial phones were phased out long ago. You will find retro-style rotary dialers (sans the pulse telephone network) here and there, however -- for example, at the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, N.M., on historic US Route 66, a remnant of mid-20th century American culture (and tech).
If you're a Baby Boomer or older, you've probably had a chance to fold, spindle, or mutilate a punch card at some point in your life. Dating back to the late 19th century, punch cards were used to record data. The counterculture movement of the 1960s made the seemingly innocuous punch card the target of its ire, deriding the stiff slices of paper as symbols of an increasingly soulless, mechanized, and computerized society. Punch cards have largely disappeared from everyday life, having been replaced by newer, more efficient means of data collection, processing, and storage. The last holdouts: voting machines in tech-challenged precincts around the nation.
Monochrome displays are still spotted in the wild. Many cash registers and credit card machines have them, for instance. But you may have to trek to a computer museum to spot a monochrome CRT monitor from the early days of the PC (circa 1983). A monochrome monitor displays text and graphics in one color, depending on the phosphor used. Green monochrome was popular in the drab, buttoned-down world of IBM-compatible PCs, but amber and white were popular options as well. The advent of color monitors with red, green, and blue phosphors, as well as increasingly sophisticated user interfaces and applications that demanded a full color palette, soon consigned the monochrome monitor to the back office, and later to the tech trash heap.
Before ink jets took over the consumer printing market in the 1990s, dot-matrix printers ruled. (Laser printers were around back then as well, but they were pricey and relegated mostly to the business market.) Noisy and slow by today's standards, dot-matrix technology uses a print head that moves back and forth across the page. Similar to a typewriter, but more versatile in that it can print graphics and multiple fonts, a dot-matrix print head strikes an ink-filled ribbon against the paper. Several factors led to the technology's demise, most notably the rising sophistication (and lower prices) of color ink-jet printers, which, in addition to being much quieter, were vastly superior at printing photos -- a key consideration as the digital camera went mainstream.
Computers, tablets, and smartphones all have ports, most notably USB, but the once-ubiquitous parallel and serial ports are long gone. The 9-pin RS-232 connector was used to hook up a variety of external PC peripherals, including modems, mice, data storage devices, uninterruptible power supplies, and other gear. Longtime Apple users will recall the Mac's RS-422 serial ports, which were replaced by USB on the iMac in 1998. The parallel port was used mostly to hook up printers -- which later switched to USB, Ethernet, or WiFi connections -- as well for scanners, external hard drives, joysticks, and even some early MP3 players.
The Teletype, or teleprinter, was an electro-mechanical typewriter that printed written messages through various communication systems, including standard telephone lines via modem. While its origins date way back to the 19th century -- its ancestor is the venerable stock ticker printing quotes on thin paper strips -- the teletype was used throughout the 1970s and 80s in a variety of businesses. Many newsrooms of the era, for instance, received wire stories via teletype machines. Ultimately the teleprinter was replaced by the computer terminal, which reduced paper usage and expense, made it easier to edit and share text, and proved more cost-efficient overall.
Yes, Millennial, you're probably familiar with the floppy disk. Desktops and laptops in the early 2000s still came with floppy disk drives (FDDs) that accommodated those hard-shelled 3.5-inch disks. But once there was a time when floppies were truly... well, floppy. The earliest floppy disks arrived in the late 1960s and measured 8 inches in diameter. By the time the PC revolution hit in the mid-70s, the 5.25-inch FDD had taken the place of its gangly older sibling. But the 5.25-inch disk also proved too delicate and cumbersome for the rigors of day-to-day use, and it was phased out by the mid-90s.
Wang Laboratories was a major player in the word-processing terminal and minicomputer markets of the 1970s and 80s, but fizzled out in the 90s after the death of its CEO and cofounder Dr. An Wang. Thanks to its frequent TV ads, Wang was more of a household name than many tech companies of its era, including those that are still around. The rise of the IBM PC (and subsequent PC clones) killed off Wang's word-processor line, and the company stumbled in its efforts to build both propriety and IBM-compatible PCs. Wang Laboratories filed for bankruptcy in 1992 and later reemerged as Wang Global, but the company never regained its former glory before fading away entirely.
Wang Laboratories was a major player in the word-processing terminal and minicomputer markets of the 1970s and 80s, but fizzled out in the 90s after the death of its CEO and cofounder Dr. An Wang. Thanks to its frequent TV ads, Wang was more of a household name than many tech companies of its era, including those that are still around. The rise of the IBM PC (and subsequent PC clones) killed off Wang's word-processor line, and the company stumbled in its efforts to build both propriety and IBM-compatible PCs. Wang Laboratories filed for bankruptcy in 1992 and later reemerged as Wang Global, but the company never regained its former glory before fading away entirely.
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