Last week I came across a four-year-old The Verge article referencing long-time tech reporter Walt Mossberg.  Walt had retired in 2017 after nearly 30 years of reporting on technology.  You may remember him from his reporting at The Wall Street Journal to his later transition to The Verge and other media.  After seeing the article's photo above, it just got me thinking of how much technology has changed in my 50 years of existence!

I remember as a little boy in the mid- to late- '70s going into my dad's or grandfather's office.  They each had something similar to the red LED Texas Instruments (TI) 30.  I loved the red lights and spelling words like "43110"!  My grandparents got us "Pong," and as the decade turned, my dad got me an Atari 2600. 

In Junior High and High School, I had something like a Casio FX-550 to help with Algebra and Calculus.  Later in High School, for my Senior Year, I got an Apple Mac Plus.  In college, I was so excited to get an HP 48SX graphing calculator (the fact you could program on this handheld was so cool!).  As I shifted from Grad School to Law School, I bit the bullet and got a laptop with Windows 95.  I wasn't thrilled with it, but Windows was the mainstay of the legal profession of the time.

Fifteen (15) years ago, during my first year as a solo, I remembered my fourth windows machine (over nearly ten [10] years) biting the dust.  I dreaded buying another Windows laptop.  But then I remember since I'm the boss, I can choose the platform I want to work on at my own office.  Thankfully Macintosh Computers were becoming more mainstream (with some help from the newly released iPhone), I figured it was worth the investment.

Whether you are on Windows, Android, or Apple OS/iOS, it's amazing that computers' ease of use, portability, and accessibility computers have contributed to the practice of law.  Now instead of turning your calculator upside down just to say "hello," you can compose, research, collaborate, share and file a brief from just about anywhere.  With improvements in chip speed, faster and more accessible Wi-Fi, and the ingenuity that is out there, I can't wait to see what's next in the field of computers/technology and how it will impact the practice of law!

MTC