A good read is the complete archives of Compute magazine, from 1981-1990:

https://archive.org/search.php?query...licdate&page=3

Where were the breakthrough solutions in 1985?

The Computerized Home - Switchbox

Undoubtedly Switchbox was a lot cheaper than the $3 billion Google paid for Nest.

The Digital Diet Staying In Shape With Your Computer

Not to be confused with the billions pouring into wearable fitness tracker startups.

Then there's everyone's favorite

Travelshopper lets you scan flight availabilities (on virtually any airline worldwide), find airfare bargains...

Except for the names, it's the same story.

To be sure, we live manely the same way we did 30 years ago. It can be depressing to see the same problems being solved then that you're solving today, but that applies to everyone. Every profession still does manely the same thing it did 30 years ago, whether in technology or anything else.

The 1 thing that sort of feels new is the drone. It absolutely didn't exist in anyone's mind until 2007, but energy storage continues to keep it out of the realm of practical problems like the Digital Diet. Aerospace is intriguing in that space missions are much cheaper, yet there are far less of them.

Doctors, lawyers, & teachers solve exactly the same problems they did 100 years ago, despite minor changes to their tools. These are not professions for you if reading about your same task being done 30 years ago is depressing. Most people aren't this way about the past, but some do need to solve new problems.

I agree, in part, regarding the 'drone'. Pouring through pages and pages of old RC magazines (for my Jack Headley research), I keep seeing the occasional article on the 'RPV'. In fact I just came across one of the first articles pitching the idea of using a micro-controller to take over the decoding of commands sent to the aircraft. The author discusses his application idea, aerobatic pattern flying.

With much discussion and some sampling theory diagrams, it is an early indicator why even now folk are amazed to see a quadrotor 'flip' at the push of a button... 36 years after the article.

-=Doug