Before there was Watson - and all the other computers in between - there was the IBM Selectric. I received one of these bohemeths as a high school graduation gift, in the charming beige color pictured on the left, and I was thrilled. The amazing thing about this typewriter were the little golf-ball thing-ies (yes, "golf ball thing-ies" is a technical term) which allowed you to change the font, italics, and more. It was really a precursor to the word-processor. And that's not to mention that you could type with dizzying speed, compared to the old manual typewriters.
The Selectric weighed far more than the laptop I am typing on now and could probably do about .0000000001 of what this computer can accomplish. But boy was it state of the art when it came out in the early 1960s. I wonder what technology we'll be using when we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the MacBook Pro?
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