Lecture 2

I found this lecture about the history of the computer really interesting. It helped me to peice together all the bits and pieces I have heard about the evolution of the computer. Of course I had heard of Bill Gates, PC, Xerox, Apple, the silicone Vally in San Francisco and even the 'Home Brew' group but this lecture connected the dots.

I was amazed that the history of the computer took us all the way back to the early 19th Century and Charles Babbage's mechanical computers and a women even features in the computers origins - Ada Byron.

In the 1950's came IBM and then in 1965, Gordom Moore propounded Moore's law: the capacity of microchip's doubles every two years. This expalians the huge techlological boom that I have grown up in.

Next comes the PC. While the technologically illiterate people, like me, at the time probably had no idea how important some box (that didn't do all that much) was, tech-nerds realised this was going somewhere and got excited. For Bill Gates it was reason enough to drop out of collage and start hanging out in in garage. And somehow (I have absolutely no idea how someone would go about doing this) he wrote a language; a language that would be spoken by computers and would lead to him having a little bit of money to one day retire on.

The Apple fellas made themselves a little bit of a profit also when they turned the nerdy PC into a consumer product.

Bill Gates' Microsoft was then found by IBM as they searched for the software they needed. This partnership resulted in great success. Shortly after Windows was created and their business skills won out over Apple.

The Internet

Imput from:
RAND corporation
Researchers - packet switching
US Dept of Defence
hobbyists, hackers and the counter-culture - I found this interesting. Perhaps those who have had the most impact in the computer are those who are passionant about the technology.

In the 1990's the web emerged as people began to see the potential of the internet and computers communicating.

I'd say most people can name many internest applications such as email, p2p file sharing, facebook, skype and IM.