Tasmanian newsrooms, with histories stretching back to the 1800s, have changed a lot too. From hand-cranked presses, to hot metal and linotype, to typewriters and computers, to laptops and smartphones, the changes have been constant.

When I started there was no individual email or internet and the fax machine was how people posted to social media.

Aside from no longer being able to smoke a cigar and drink a beer at your desk on a Saturday night (I unfortunately missed those glory days by a couple of decades), it is the dress code that has changed the most.

Check out the above picture from 1917. Apart from the diversity of the workforce being more than a little skewed, it is the formal fashion that sticks out: it is wall-to-wall three-piece suits, hats and bow ties.

Perhaps I have watched too much Boardwalk Empire but I love the houndstooth suits, vests, pocket squares and hats.

Before my first day I was told to always wear a suit and tie, the reason being you might be sent to interview the Governor or the Prime Minister.

A stickler for rules, order and process, it is something I adhered to unfailingly.

I trudged through a bushfire in a suit and tie, stumbling up a hill in dress shoes and returning to the office smelling like a BBQ.

On a fairway of the Tam O'Shanter golf course, a storm soaked me to the skin and required the work car heaters blaring at full bore to dry a dripping suit off.

Even being hundreds of meters below ground at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine was done suited up, wearing the overalls and sweltering in the humid conditions.

At the Ringarooma footy ground, I jumped the boundary fence and nearly tore a hammy along with my suit pants. But they must have been impressed by the athleticism or amused by the effort, because they offered $100 a game.

The times and the ties are clearly a changin'.

One understands long sleeves and ties are not great in hospitals and you certainly do not want a tie dangling around your next when machinery is whirring.

But when you work in an office the worst thing that can happen, so long as you stay away from the shredder, is dipping your tie in a cup of coffee (a red one ended up with a 10 centimetre stain because of just that).

From CEOs down, the tie has disappeared and now the suit appears to be following.

In fact, wearing a suit and tie in public is almost a beacon for abuse.

Turning up to soccer training, it was the footy team sharing the ground who yell out, "Here comes the Five-O".

At a house inspection it was a bloke muttering "yuppie" half under his breath.

Only this week, some kids on the street heckled, "Hello, I'm the prime minster and I'm here to announce..."

Weddings are a new nightmare for suit wearers. Once it was women mindful of not wearing the same colour as the bridesmaids, now us men have to make sure we are not overdressed. "What is the groom wearing," I asked my wife recently. "Does it matter?" Well, yes it does if the groom is in chinos and you are in top hat and tails.

Even shorts are becoming the popular choice at the races, which makes even the most casual lounge suit look white tie.

Speaking of white tie, dress codes are no longer worth the paper the invite is written on with people turning up to black tie events in jeans and thongs - thongs!

Obviously dress code is not at all relevant to one's ability to do the job. In fact, it is probably the opposite and this Windsor knot is depriving my brain of oxygen while those sans tie are firing on all synaptic cylinders.

People like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg have probably got it right with a wardrobe full of the same casual clothes so as to remove one less decision each day.

Maybe that is where it will end: with all of us wearing matching grey spandex jumpsuits in 100 years' time. (Let's hope not.)

Then someone else will be looking back at the technology and dress code with nostalgia and thinking how quaint the world was.