Q&A WITH JOHN CAMPBELL JOHN CAMPBELL IS A VILLAGE OF COLLIER RESIDENT AND BOARD MEMBER OF THE VILLAGES COMPUTER CLUB. In both his personal life and his career as a chemist, he has worked with plenty of technology and has seen many changes in computers over the years. Q | What was your career and how did you use computers and/ or the internet with your job? A | I am a retired senior scientist from General Electric Global Research, where I did materials research on GE Plastics utilizing my training as a Ph.D organic chemist. I used computers to control sophisticated lab instruments and, with help from other scientists, performed detailed structural analyses in designing improved materials. Computers also aided research activities in providing internet access to worldwide sources of information - again to aid in materials design. Computers were also used in data analyses and experiment design. Q | What was the first computer you ever owned? What were its specs? What did you use it for primarily? A | The first computer was an Apple IIe with 48mb of memory with 5.25 floppy drives and no hard drive with the CPU running at 1MHz clock speed compared to 3+Ghz for today's machines. I used it principally for word processing - the internet was not functional in the way we know of it today at that time nor was access available. Q | How did life get easier as technology progressed? What sorts of struggles did you have previously with an older computer that were alleviated when you got a new one? John Campbell performs an experiment in his first week on the job at GE Global Research center in 1975. THE VILLAGES COMPUTER CLUB discusses computer-related topics every Friday at various locations around The Villages. For meeting topics, locations and other information about the club, visit thevillagescomputerclub.com. 32 JANUARY 2020 A | Life got easier and more difficult. Easier in that analyses could be performed more quickly and information was more readily available from a wide variety of sources - instrumentation became more sophisticated, enabling more detailed information. Life got more difficulthttp://www.thevillagescomputerclub.com