This commentary offers a brief reflection on the state of CALL in 1997, when "Language Learning & Technology" was launched with my paper entitled "CALL in the year 2000: Still in search of research paradigms?" The point of my 1997 paper was to suggest the potential value of research on second language learning for the study of CALL. This look back from 2016 claims that theory and research in second language acquisition has proven useful for evaluating the quality of technologies for language learning.