Katina Michael Reflects on Technology Innovation between 1982 and 1996
Channel: Katina Michael
Date: 2016-03-11

Interview conducted on 28 July 2009 by Jordan Brown for a documentary. Film recording and editing by Jordan Brown.

I was 4 years old when my mother was mailed a credit card that she did not know what to do with. For a little while she kept it in a safe place contemplating the notion of "credit". Some months later, she told me she had decided she liked cash alone, as credit would likely get people into financial trouble, and she threw the credit card in the trash.

I was 5 or 6 years old when I saw the first bar code scanners and electronic cash registers at Coles in Marrickville, NSW, Australia. I remember that the docket looked different, the "k-ching" of the electronic cash register, the changes to the aisles, and the red and green colored LED lights on the counter that flashed as items were scanned. Bar code scanners back then looked a lot different, and were not seamlessly integrated into the register desk, like they are today. 

In 1984, the Commonwealth Bank visited us to tell us about ATM cards and how we would be able to bank with them using cards to withdraw our money but this was at a time that in our class banking program we deposited 50 cents per week (mostly made up of 1 and 2c coins). 

In 1987 we bought our first 'family' computer, an Amiga 500, that I shared with all my siblings. I spent days on end creating moving animations and rendering complex images. 

In 1994 in first year university, I remember my friend Clint Paton telling me to visit the Tower Building (Level 10) to use "the Internet". I did. Within ten seconds of sitting at the lab computer, the guy at the next computer bay asked me if I knew how to spell "amphetamine".

In 1996, when I started working for Nortel Networks, I shared a mobile phone with my colleagues, and then in 1999 the famous right angle turn, when voice would also be considered a form of data. It was not long after that that I sold telecommunications equipment that enabled the wireless Internet... 

I feel like I've been in a box position to "live" the change at a pace that was consumable. Now the change occurring, seems all too fast.