November 2028 is the 40th anniversary of ESD.

Twenty years ago, this magazine and the Embedded Systems Conference celebrated a birthday. It was 2008, and we were 20 years old. We took the opportunity to reminisce about the birth of the embedded system and the milestones that marked the pioneer days of the industry. Now it's 2028, our 40th year as a publication, and we're offering up another time capsule: a look back through the accomplishments of the last 20 years, from 2008 to 2028. We've asked some of the elders of the embedded systems community to talk about those years. Their essays are included here for you to enjoy; further essays can be found online. You may also share your reminiscences online on Embedded.com.

But first, let's establish the baseline. Picture yourself back in 2008, when the industry was in its teenage years.

The embedded system had come a long way by then. In 2008, we looked back at those first systems installed as guidance computers in missiles and the lunar module in the 1960s and '70s and were amazed at what was accomplished with so little. The systems were mostly one-of-a-kind, cost millions of taxpayers' dollars, and used almost all the available integrated circuits on the market. (Those systems were the IC market at first.)

Backward and forward, 2008-2028 Looking back from 2028--these appeared in print in the following order: Bernard Cole, Site Editor, Embedded.com 2028: Embedded is (still) as embedded does Ganesh Moorthy, Executive Vice President, Microchip 2028: The end user is always right David Kleidermacher, CTO, Green Hills Software A trip to the coffee shop, 2028 David May, CTO and Cofounder of XMOS 2028: Concurrent processing--from revolution to legacy Jean J. Labrosse, President of Micrium 2028: Open source is out, app-centric chips are in (Article was printed under the title: "The Extinction of Open Source.") Neil Henderson, General Manager, Embedded Systems Division, Mentor Graphics Corporation 2028: Wireless is the new wired Vin Ratford, Vice President and General Manager of Xilinx's Solutions Development Group 2028: FPGA platforms made designing faster and cheaper James Truchard, Cofounder and CEO of National Instruments In 2028, sensors are everywhere Ray Alderman, Executive Director, VITA 2028: It's all about VME Gene Frantz, TI Principal Fellow and DSP Business Development Manager 2028: Little green robots to the rescue Michael Paczan, Chief Technology Officer, VaST 2028: Electronics virtualization restored innovation and profit to electronics John Derrick, Chief Operating Officer, MIPS Technologies Waiting for asteroid 35396 David Katz, Blackfin Applications Manager for New Product Development, Analog Devices, Inc. and Rick Gentile, Blackfin DSP Applications Group, Analog Devices, Inc. 2028: Cores' law, swarm computing, and people power Doug Davis, Vice President of the Digital Enterprise Group and General Manager of the Embedded and Communications Group, Intel Fifteen billion devices, one embedded network Rick Zarr, Chief Technologist, PowerWise Products, National Semiconductor 2028: Clean energy rules, but customization is king John East, President and CEO, Actel Eyes are still on power in 2028 Paul Anderson, Vice President of engineering, GrammaTech Software quality: economically important and standardized T. J. Rodgers, Founder, President, CEO, Cypress Semiconductor Corporation Back to the future 2028 Looking forward from 2008 to 2028 (online only): Dan Dodge, QNX Software Embedded Systems in 2028: Focus on the big picture Inder M. Singh, Chairman of LynuxWorks Embedded systems: The marketplace in 2028 Mike Christofferson, Director of Product Management, Enea On the road to 2028: Embedded needs standard IPC Joel K. Young, CTO and Senior VP of R&D, Digi International 2028--A glimpse into embedded devices' connected future