Wake Up Now · School of Life
The 50-Year Report
Mount Clear & district · Ballarat · a wake-up call to all
We’ve got our own school now — so we can teach it the right info, the right way. Not the Right way. The way we do it.
Term 1 · the 1970s — the party line
| 1976 | Mount Clear opens its doors. A phone is bolted to the wall and shared with the street. Ballarat |
| 1977 | The home computer lands — Apple II, Commodore PET, the TRS-80. |
| 1978 | The first bulletin boards (BBS): strangers “talk” down a phone line. |
| 1979 | Sony’s Walkman puts music in your pocket for the first time. |
Term 2 · the 1980s — off the wall
| 1980 | Pac-Man and the arcade boom; computers start turning up in classrooms. |
| 1981 | The IBM PC arrives and sets the shape of the office for decades. |
| 1982 | The Commodore 64 — the best-selling home computer ever made. |
| 1983 | The first hand-held mobile call (a Motorola brick); the internet’s TCP/IP switches on. |
| 1984 | The Apple Macintosh — a mouse, windows and icons for everyone. |
| 1985 | Windows 1.0; the first-ever .com domain name is registered. |
| 1986 | The fax machine takes over the back office; the modem screeches to life. |
| 1987 | Australia’s first mobile network switches on (analogue AMPS). |
| 1988 | ISDN and the first internet-wide “worm” — the network’s getting real. |
| 1989 | Tim Berners-Lee writes the proposal for the World Wide Web; the Game Boy. |
Term 3 · the 1990s — into your pocket
| 1990 | Windows 3.0 and Photoshop 1.0 — the digital age hits its stride. |
| 1991 | The first web page goes live; GSM digital mobile launches; Linux begins. |
| 1992 | The first-ever text message is sent. (A Year 9 kid that year had no idea.) Class of ’92 |
| 1993 | The Mosaic browser makes the web something anyone can use. |
| 1994 | The first smartphone (IBM Simon); Amazon and Yahoo begin. |
| 1995 | Windows 95; eBay; the web arrives in the living room. |
| 1996 | The Nokia Communicator; ICQ; mobiles start to shrink and spread. |
| 1997 | Wi-Fi’s first standard is published; DVDs arrive. |
| 1998 | Google is founded; the iMac makes computers friendly. |
| 1999 | WAP puts a slice of the web on your phone; Napster; the BlackBerry. |
Term 4 · the 2000s — everyone’s connected
| 2000 | The first camera phone; USB flash drives replace the floppy. |
| 2001 | Wikipedia; the iPod; Windows XP; the first 3G network. |
| 2002 | Camera phones everywhere; picture messaging (MMS). |
| 2003 | Skype makes calls over the internet free; 3G reaches Australia. |
| 2004 | Facebook and Gmail launch — social and the inbox change forever. |
| 2005 | YouTube and Google Maps; broadband overtakes dial-up. |
| 2006 | Twitter arrives — and Lake Wendouree sits dry in the big drought. Ballarat |
| 2007 | The iPhone. The phone becomes everything. Android is announced. |
| 2008 | The App Store opens; the first Android phones ship. |
| 2009 | The first 4G networks; WhatsApp; the smartphone takes over. |
Term 5 · the 2010s — the world in your hand
| 2010 | The iPad and Instagram; the NBN begins — and Lake Wendouree fills again. Ballarat |
| 2011 | Snapchat; the cloud; smartphones start outselling PCs. |
| 2012 | 4G rolls out across Australia; tap-and-go cards spread. |
| 2013 | Wearables begin — and Ballarat’s Eureka centre (M.A.D.E.) opens its doors. Ballarat |
| 2014 | Apple Pay — the phone quietly becomes your wallet. |
| 2015 | Streaming lands in Australia; the smartphone is now universal. |
| 2016 | Wireless earbuds; voice assistants move into the home. |
| 2017 | Tap-and-go is everywhere; the all-screen phone. |
| 2018 | The eSIM arrives — a phone with no SIM card to swap. |
| 2019 | 5G is switched on; the first foldable phones appear. |
Term 6 · the 2020s — it works for you
| 2020 | The world works from home; video calls carry the whole year. |
| 2021 | QR codes on every door; hybrid work becomes normal. |
| 2022 | eSIM goes mainstream; the old 3G networks start winding down. |
| 2023 | Smart everything; always-connected becomes the default. |
| 2024 | Australia switches off its 3G networks for good. |
| 2025 | The network that does the work for you takes shape. |
| 2026 | Fifty years. Mount Clear turns 50 — and the whole world fits in your pocket, with a network that runs itself. Today |
Teacher’s remarks
“Started slow. Left us halfway through Year 9. Kept asking the English teacher the meaning of life — the answer, apparently, was cabbages.”
“Couldn’t spell it. Turns out you don’t need to know how to spell it to sell it. Went and built the whole network anyway.”
“Does not always follow instructions. Gets the job done regardless.”
A+
Final resultLeft in Year 9 — went the distance anyway. Marked for effort, cheek, and never once giving up. Passed with flying colours.
Our review of the old school — ★★★★★
Fifty years on and still standing, still turning kids into something. It didn’t get everything right — no school does — but it had the ones who got through to you, and that’s the whole game. Five stars from a dropout who owes it more than he ever let on. Happy fiftieth, Mount Clear.
Fill in Ballarat’s years
We’ve laid down the timeline — the real story is the local one. The teacher who got through to you, the year the footy came home, the shop on the corner, the photo in the bottom drawer. Ballarat past students and locals: send yours in and we’ll add them to the year they belong to. That’s how a fifty-year story gets written — together.
CJ
Signed — a proud Year 9 dropout, 9C3, Canadian mini-school, ’92Date — 2026, fifty years on