Critical Analysis Computers pg 84-149

The second half of "Computers:The Life Story of a Technology" by Eric G. Swedin and David L. Ferro continues to elaborate on the evolution of computers. The first personal/home computer, which is known as desktop today, was first thought of in 1973 by Les Solomon. It was called the Altair because that was what planet Enterprise went to on Star Treck's episode when Solomon created it. The Altair 8800 was the beginning of the computer market business and after its invention other companies tried to compete, by making different concepts. The second half also mentions Bill Gates and how he created Microsoft as software to be ran on these new computers. It also mentions Apple as well.

America's digitally connected society is a result to the packet switching discuss in the Computers book. Basically data being sent to certain locations; and later would expand to wireless Internet and Networking. Obviously today everyone is connected and is part of some sort of network. Interestingly enough, Americans, as well as the whole world, seems to depend on these networks for communication between one another; although they do not know the origin or how these networks came about. Before this class I was one of 'those' people, but now after reading just the first book of the class, have become acclimated to the history of networking/computer.

Computers have become world wide. Almost everything has technology/computers in it. Pretty soon the world will be ran by computers just like all the hypothetical movies and shows. The Artificial Intelligence and Robitics development foreshadow this theory. It is scary to think that computers are able to have cognitive abilities that resemble that of humans. When it comes to technology the possibilities are endless. At the end of the book, Swedin talks about nanotechnology and pretty much endless technological power that cannot be seen by the human eye. We live in a fast paced world, but technology is moving at a pace that may be uncontrollable in the future. Who knows...maybe when the human race is taken over by AI robots they may develop even more enhanced technology that will take them over as well. I feel like the end of technology surpass infinite. We are only in the midst of the beginning of an technological age.

ChristoPHO

Critical Analysis Computers pg 1-83

After reading the first half of “Computers: The Life Story of a Technology,” by Eric G. Swedin and David L. Ferro I have learned that there were many early inventions in technology that has helped the development of technology in the modern world. America’s involvement in wars played a key role; the US army invested in a machine that is considered the first modern age computer called the ENIAC, which stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (pg. 3). Without the demand of higher quality technology through our government’s homeland security, the growth of technology may not have been as exponential as it is presently. This is the first case to imply America’s dependency on technology to survive. In saying that, the whole world has become dependent on technology as well.
Computers are only able to run if it is programmed correctly. The first programming languages were created through wires and plugs that had to be placed in different locations at different times to allow the computer to perform the task at hand. An IBM employee named John Backus, created a team called FORTRAN which stood for Formula Translators and sought to create a programming language that was not based on binary numbers and were more complex for computers during the 1950s. These languages allowed the computer to perform different calculations faster than previous languages. FORTRAN is considered to be 3rd generation technology and is among the first program languages. There are numerous of others; List Processing (LISP) and Algorithmic Language (ALGOL), to name a few, were created just a little after FORTRAN.
During World War II, nations found themselves funding more and more money into their research of technology and science. The nation with the best technology would win the war, survive and become stronger. Ideally, this concept has incorporated into America’s culture. Today everyone competes to have the best technology: the latest phones, laptops, video game consoles. You are considered to be an outcast if you haven’t got the latest technology in stores that same day. So analogous to surviving in the past when our nation was at war with half the world through having better technology than the opponent, it can be evident in our society today, a sense of accomplishment or even dominance over one another, to have the latest hardware and software.

Still working on HTML codes, kind of new to this. Maybe next time!


- ChristoPHO