Back before email and text, and even before telephones were common place, people communicated by letter and postcard. I've got postcards that give far more than a "having a lovely time, wish you were here" type message. They contain family news and plans for future events. And because they were written on picture postcards that have been kept for posterity - something you don't get with today's transient electronic messages. Maybe in 70 years' time our descendants will be thanking Facebook for their "once it's there, it's staying" policy as they try to trace our family history.

Here's one that's really old. It was sent from my grandfather to my grandmother before they were married from the Empire Exhibition of 1924: "we are spending the morning at the Exhibition. Wonderful sights". Isn't that the 1920s equivalent of the Facebook message "Ruby Barefoot was at ... with ... "? It's also got a commemorative stamp - that's something you don't see every day.

Then there's a postcard from Berlin: "Arrived here feeling very tired. Did not have much sleep last night owing to the boat rolling. There is thick snow all over Berlin" sent in 1937. Today it would be a text message. It would be only couple of years before the view on the postcard was gone for ever, first being bombed during the war and then being dissected by the Berlin Wall.

Another one (undated, but pre-1938) has what would now be the facebook status "just going to bed" added at the top

In 1980 there were 1/2 pence stamps. Postage cost ten pence. Wouldn't it be fun to fill an envelope with 1/2 pence stamps? Well, I thought so. I don't know whether the Royal Mail were so amused.

When I was at school, computers were new and scary and careers in computing were not really understood. My school organised a "careers in computing" evening - which may or may not have subliminally directed me towards my chosen profession. I found the hand-out we were given, and some of the advice is still pretty relevant. I've reproduced the full text below for you to read at your leisure, but here are a few highlights:

"It is not necessary to be 'good at maths' ... what is needed ... is an analytical intelligence ... This quality often goes with mathematical ability, but not only mathematicians can think clearly and logically" (my italics)

"an ability to communicate clearly in speech and on paper ... is essential for progress".

The document is also prescient in predicting the opportunity for working from home. But I don't think that you can get away today with: "For girls, computers would seem to offer good prospects of an 'interruptible' career to which a woman can return after raising children provided she has kept up to date with developments - and the advent of television links and cheap home mini-computers will help her not only to do this learning while house-bound, but also in future to do useful paid work at home"

For those unfamiliar with computer technology (and it is a world with a whole new jargon of its own) there is an important first distinction between HARDWARE, the actual electronic and other equipment used, together with its design and manufacture, installation and maintenance, and SOFTWARE, the programs, systems, 'uses' and the instructions that control them.

A computer cannot 'think'. It can only do what it has been instructed, or 'programmed' to do. Computers have two special capabilities: to make complex calculations at phenomenal speed, and to handle vast amounts of information, in words or figures, and produce from them selected items. Because it does this at incredible speed, it can appear to make logical deductions.

Computer science is developing so rapidly that even the term 'computing' is losing favour as the possibilities widen, since it has a limited connotation of mathematical calculation. 'Electronic data processing', 'information technology', even 'infornatics' are increasingly coming into use.

Provided a person is reasonably numerate, it is NOT necessary to be 'good at maths' to work successfully with computers. What is needed at the upper levels is an analytical intelligence - a facility for coping with abstract problems. This quality often goes with mathematical ability, but not only mathematicians can think clearly and logically. (It is significant that the tests used by computer firms when recruiting are not on the whole mathematical ones). For planning the uses and applications of computers, imagination is necessary for envisaging just how a computer's special capabilities could be applied to a particular situation or problem. And, as in most careers, an ability to communicate clearly in speech and on paper - to explain complex matters simply to laymen, to ask the right questions, to make a clear and concise report or analysis - is essential for progress.

One of the advantages of being trained to work with computers at all levels, is that the expertise gained is 'marketable' in an ever-widening range of activities, so one is not limited to one#s first sphere of employment. For girls, computers would seem to offer good prospects of an 'interruptible' career to which a woman can return after raising children provided she has kept up to date with developments - and the advent of television links and cheap home mini-computers will help her not only to do this learning while house-bound, but also in future to do useful paid work at home. (The last point will apply to men too.)

Manufacturers of hardware employ the whole range of professional and other engineers to be found in any electronics firm (e.g. telecommunications), together with research and development experts looking always to the future.

On the software side, there are several main types of job The SYSTEMS ANALYST (or Systems Designer) investigates and reports on a situation to see whether and how a computer could be used.
APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMERS: once a general plan is decided on the applications programmer breaks down the overall program into a logical series of step-by-step sequences of instructions suited to 'the way a computer works'.
SOFTWARE OR SYSTEMS PROGRAMMERS are the most specialised and scientific. They design and develop the 'controlling program' which will enable the computer to do what is required. They alone are always high technologists and tend to have least contact with non-computer people.

At the present time there are many people doing these jobs without formal training or qualifications, because they have 'grown into the job' as computers have developed. But in future it seems certain most will either be graduates (though not necessarily in 'computing' subjects) or will have gained special qualifications after A levels.