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# Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's Forty: A Trip Back to 1986 Business Technology
[Cambium Data Blog](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/categories/blog) [Miscellaneous](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/categories/miscellaneous)
[Tony Underwood](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/blogger/tony-underwood)
Monday, 26 January 2026
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In 2026, we spend most of our days managing cloud architecture, deploying automated security patches, and chatting with AI bots. If we dial the clock back exactly 40 years to 1986, however, business technology wasn't just a different world; it was a different dimension.
In 1986, the cloud that we use for business wasn’t even an option. In fact, the cloud was something that ruined your weekend golf plans. We thought it would be cool to take a look at what some of the cutting-edge business technology looked like if you walked into an office 40 years ago.
## The Desktop
In 1986, the personal computer was finally making headway inside of corporate workplaces; it just wasn’t the sleek, silent laptop you use today. Let’s take a trip back to the mid-80s and talk about some of the technology you might have seen.
- **The hardware** - The IBM PC XT and the newly minted Compaq Deskpro 386 were the kings of the cubicle. A fast machine ran at 16 MHz (no, not GHz) and featured a *massive* 40 MB hard drive.
- **The display** - Forget the high-resolution monitors you use today. You were likely staring at a heavy, flickering CGA or EGA monitor that displayed a whopping 16 colors, if you were lucky. At this point, most people were still working in Green Screen monochrome.
- **The storage** - Floppy disks were actually floppy. The 5.25-inch disk was the standard, holding about 360 KB of data. Moving a large file meant carrying a stack of plastic squares across the office in a color-codex Rolodex-style carrier.
## The Software Suites
There was no auto-save and certainly no real-time collaboration. If two people needed to work on the same budget, they took turns sitting at the computer. Here are some of the software workers of the era used.
- **Word processing** - WordPerfect was the titan of the era. It was a text-heavy environment where you had to memorize Function Key combinations to do something as simple as bolding a word.
- **Spreadsheets** - Before Excel dominated the world, Lotus 1-2-3 was the killer app that convinced businesses they actually needed computers.
- **The OS** - You didn't point and click much. You typed. MS-DOS 3.2 was the standard, requiring users to know commands like DIR, COPY, and DEL. Windows 1.0 existed, but in 1986, it was largely considered a slow, clunky novelty.
## The Pre-Internet Dark Ages
This is the hardest part for professionals under 30 to grasp: The office was an island.
- **Email** - It existed, but mostly on internal mainframes or through services like BITNET. For most, sending a memo meant typing it, printing it on a Dot Matrix printer (the ones with the perforated paper edges you had to tear off), and putting it in a physical In-Box.
- **The fax machine -** 1986 was the beginning of the Fax Revolution. At the time, it was the height of high-speed transmission; sending a grainy black-and-white image over a phone line in about 60 seconds was considered pure sorcery.
- **Research** - If you had a technical problem, you didn't Google it. You opened a 400-page printed manual or called a guy who had been at the company for 20 years.
## The IT Professional's Life
Back then, being an IT Guy meant being a literal mechanic. You spent your days:
- **Configuring jumpers** - Manually setting pins on physical circuit boards to tell the computer how much RAM it had.
- **Managing the room** - If your company was big enough, you had a mainframe or Minicomputer that sat in a refrigerated room and required a dedicated professional to maintain.
- **Physical security** - Cybersecurity was mostly about locking the office door so nobody stole the $5,000 computer.
Looking back at 1986 reminds us that technology is a journey of removing friction. We've moved from commands to clicks to conversations. While we might complain when the Wi-Fi drops for thirty seconds today, in 1986, you'd spend thirty minutes just waiting for your computer to warm up and boot from a floppy.
We’ve come a long way from the green glow of the ‘86 office, but the goal remains the same: making the tools work so the people can create.
For more great technology content, keep coming back to our blog.
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Tags:
[Hardware](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/tags/hardware) [Technology](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/tags/technology) [Productivity](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/tags/productivity-1)
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[ 3 Clever Ways to Waste Less Time on Email ](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/3-clever-ways-to-waste-less-time-on-email)
About the author
[  ](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/blogger/tony-underwood)
[Tony Underwood](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/blogger/tony-underwood)
[ ](https://cambiumdata.directivesites.com/blog/blogger/tony-underwood)
Tony Underwood, Founder and President of Cambium Data Inc. has proven himself as one of the top internetworking experts in the industry. Mr. Underwood began his IT career in 1991 in the US Navy working on critical military computer systems. He grew his computer and networking knowledge through a number of different IT jobs from desktop support all the way up to leading the Network Engineering organization of a multi-billion dollar international company. Mr Underwood was recognized as Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert [\#7112](https://connect.directive.com/v4_6_release/services/system_io/Service/fv_sr100_request.rails?service_recid=7112&companyName=Dti) in March of 2001 and in 2022 he achieved the lifetime status of Cisco CCIE Emeritus
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