We didn't even give them a second thought.
I recall a point made in the 1970s that was meant to illustrate how quickly technology advanced in the 20th century - how someone who was 10 years old when man first achieved powered flight watched man walk on the moon at age 76.
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The Texas Instruments TI30 calculator, introduced in 1976. But, if you look at a 75-year stretch in any century since the 1700s, you'll see similar leaps for mankind. I'd argue that space flight, while amazing, doesn't necessarily supersede other advancements of humankind in industry, inventions or ideas.
For example, on that spacecraft that landed on the moon, there was a guidance computer that had, according to consumereports.org, exactly 64 kilobytes of memory and a microprocessor speed of 0.043 megahertz. The latest iPhone can be purchased with 512 GIGAbytes of memory, and if my math is right, that's 536,870,912 kilobytes. Its microprocessor operates at 2.49 GIGAhertz and let's just say that's the difference between walking and the speed of light.
MORE: Vintage photos around New Jersey
And that was in less than 50 years.
As time flies by, it's easy to forget things that were matter-of-fact parts of our lives in the 1960s and 1970s, when Apollo missions were going to the moon with those teensy computers. Here's another installment of things that may have slipped from our memory ... and I don't know about you, but my memory isn't measured in giga, mega or kilobytes - it just bites.
And here are links to other galleries you'll like.
Vintage photos of things you may have forgotten about
Vintage photos of things that have changed - for better or worse
Vintage photos of how things have changed in N.J.
Greg Hatala may be reached at greghatalagalleries@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find Greg Hatala on Facebook.
