As the original poster on this thread, I will add my $0.02 to this evolving discussion with my recollection of our evolution with personal computers and the earlier forms of social media.

I remember the first IBM PC’s at my office in 1982, with green colored text on a black screen. In those days the major business software for PC’s was WordPerfect and MultiMate (word processing) and Lotus 123 (spreadsheets).

The first PC that I purchased was in 1988, a mail-ordered PC clone, a Northgate PC with a 60 mb hard drive, a 5600 baud modem and a 13” Sony VGA CRT monitor. In 1990, I was intrigued by a new graphical computer operating system called Windows 3.0, which I bought and installed on my computer. With such a small capacity hard drive I also purchased and installed a software program called ‘Stacker’, that would compress the file size of all of the other software, thus providing additional room on my hard drive for more software…. As I recall, you could essentially get the top-of-the-line computer, monitor, hard drive, memory and other features for around $3,000. We upgraded our computer system approx. every 4 years, getting larger hard drives, faster microprocessors, additional memory, bigger monitors, etc. During the 1990’s and 2000’s, we replaced the Northgate computer with PC clones from ZEOS, Compaq, and Dell. Today we have a HP desktop and a HP lap top, as well as Apple iPhones and iPads, all connected via WiFi router and cable modem.


Back in the late 1980’s, the precursor to the current social media were three (3) major proprietary internet portal pay-subscription services available to computer users with tel. modems via dial up linkages:

1. CompuServe – Started as a form of communication between college/university professors and the engineering / technical community.
2. Prodigy – Formed by CBS/IBM/Sears and used a graphical user interface
3. America Online (Aol) – The most graphically oriented communication-savvy and robust of the three, (IMHO) and required the installation of proprietary software from free CD’s.

A number of additional services followed these three: Microsoft’s MSN and EarthLink.
Both Prodigy and AOL offered news, sports and most importantly, email. AOL advanced further and faster when it introduced real time instant messaging capabilities. Eventually, both Prodigy and Aol offered full access to the World Wide Web and web page hosting, Prodigy with their own dedicated web browser and AOL being able to use and be compatible with MS Internet Explorer. Many of us older folks still have and use our AOL email addresses in some capacity. I remember enjoying the IM capability of Aol to communicate with friends, as the precursor to today’s text messaging on our smart phones.

Remember, back in the year 2000, AOL purchased Time Warner, to form AOL Time Warner, for an unprecedented amount of money, in what most people now consider one of the worst corporate purchases of all time….

On a separate topic, I look forward to our country’s citizens coming to grip with the fact that our broadband speeds are no longer the fastest available in the world and that fact will adversely affect our competitiveness with other countries in the future, unless we demand an improvement from Verizon and AT&T. (Probably a topic for a separate dedicate post and thread….)

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My current & recent car history:
2020 BMW 440i xDrive Coupe (Wife's daily driver)
2016 BMW X5M (My daily driver)
2014 BMW M6 Coupe (gone)
2013 BWM 335i xDrive Coupe (gone)
2011 BMW 335xi turbo coupe (gone)
2007 Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG (gone)
2007 BMW 335ci twin turbo coupe (gone)
2004 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG (gone)
2004 BMW X5 4.4i (w/full Aero Kit - gone)
2001 BMW X5 4.4i (w/full Aero Kit - gone)
2000 Mercedes-Benz E430 Sport (gone)
1961 Mercedes-Benz 190SL (owned for 48 years)