I saw reminders of computers past on Facebook and it made me think.

When I started web design I used a 56.6Kbps modem and you couldn’t use the internet at the same time as the phone… Video was pretty much a non starter…

Facebook (Feb 2004), NetFlix (Jan 1997), Google (1998) hadn’t begun. Most people used AOL and Yahoo for search or email. Browser wise it was Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, which evolved into Firefox.

My connection now is 70Mbps (faster speeds are available). I can make multiple video calls across the internet without affecting the phone line..

To give you some idea of the difference… 56.6 Kbps then, now download speeds of around the 71,680Kbps – more than a little quicker.

As for space my computer then had a generous 250Mb Hard Drive and 8Mb of memory…. it also weighed almost as much as I did and you had to be careful lifting it. Today the hard drive is a terabyte in size, that’s 1,048,57Mb and the memory is 64Gb which is the equivalent to 65,536Mb!

Sitting on my desk is 1Tb portable USB drive less than half a paperback… the equivalent to 1,048,576Mb.

On my keys is a 128Gb USB key which holds 540 times as much data as my original PC.

My phone has a 128Gb MicroSD card the size of my fingernail. The phone itself has 64Gb (65,536Mb) and through services such Amazon, Sky Cinema I can download and watch entire movies.

This article may also be of interest (external link) – This engineer connected his 27-year-old Macintosh Plus to the Internet