The Lifeline of Digital Media: Understanding the Crucial Role of Network Bandwidth in Today’s Multimedia Landscape

James Moffitt
6 min readOct 22, 2024

Bandwidth is the name of the game

Xfinity Cable modem photo by author

The IBM personal computer had barely become available for purchase by individuals in 1980. They cost around 5k. The Internet as we know it today was only available to major universities. Let’s take a journey as we travel down memory lane and see how slow the Internet speeds were compared to how fast it is today.

I graduated in May of 1980. That means that our family did not have access to a personal computer or the Internet. Google was not a thing and if I wanted to research something for a school paper I used the Encyclopedia Britannica. If my parents could afford to buy the encyclopedias I could do that or ask my parents to take me to the library that was 15 miles away. Once at the library I could search the card catalog for the number to the book I wanted to check out. Do you remember the card catalog system?

I included some hyperlinks for you to review in case you are interested in the history of both the Britannica encyclopedia and the card catalog system.

I became interested in computers at the end of the 1990’s and started dabbling in personal computer hardware. I bought an 8086, then an 8088 then an x286 system. First, I learned about…

--

--

James Moffitt
James Moffitt

Written by James Moffitt

Happily married for last 34 years to Katy Moffitt, living in Goose Creek South Carolina. I love writing, bowling, and nature.

No responses yet