How it Happened

It began in 1948 when Bell Labs developed the first three element transistor amplifier to replace a vacuum tube more than 20 times larger in size. Just over a decade later, Texas Instruments took the transistor and added resistive and capacitive elements in one package, making the first integrated circuit in a small package. A decade later, integrated circuits had 14 pin connections and a thousand transistors in a package that was ⅜ inch wide by one inch long. Another decade brought  an integrated circuit with 50 pin connections and 100,000 transistors inside. By 2000, packages had 200 pins and ½ million transistors inside a package the size of a match book.

Those higher transistor counts in smaller packages made computers faster, more capable and led to the first attempts at virtual reality machines. The interest in them was minimal at first. People at the time were becoming more addicted to smartphones with data, email and video in the palm of their hand. People still got together in family gatherings or dinner out with friends, but slowly the communication between them became less and less while those present began to continually monitor their phones instead of visiting with others present at the table.

A huge virtual reality breakthrough came along in 2025 when hardware and software melded in near perfection. Now in 2040 people no longer visit at all. Bars, restaurants and coffee shops are abandoned. People leave work, where they sit and press buttons all day, go home to their cube and fire up their virtual reality devices and live entirely inside their virtual machine where they can enjoy every experience in the known universe. Our once tall, muscular bodies have already begun to shrink in size as muscular activity is no longer needed and people rarely even turn the virtual machine off long enough to bother to eat meals. I suppose they are happy but I do not know because no one speaks anymore.