A very good way to feel the time passing by… is to dig Youtube.
Look at Steve Job introducing the Macintosh in the below video, it was in 1984!

Jobs says “All the images that you are going to see on a large screen will be generated by what is in THAT bag!”
The video has not exactly aged well!
But that moment was the start of a fabulous re-start of Apple. A stock price that went from ~$2.82.- in 1984 to more than ~$660.- in September 2012.

It is also the complete world economy change path that you can follow through that Apple epic (beyond the above video). From the time where Apple designed and manufactured its products in USA to an era where only the design is USA-made… and where there is no way that manufacturing could go back to North America.