COMPUTER APPRECIATION PART V: HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER

Instructor: Chinonso Nwakaeme.



WELCOME TO PART 5 OF COMPUTER APPRECIATION CLASS.

GOOD DAY EVERYONE. we shall be focusing on the "History of the Computer"


Today, we have entered a new era: the computer age – an age which owes everything to inventors. Charles Babbage, an English mathematician, is considered to be the great-grandfather of the computer. Over 150 years ago, in 1840 to be exact, he invented a sophisticatedcalculating machine and called it the "Analytical Engine." As with many inventions, his creation was far in advance of its time.

It took another 100 years before the first computers were built, and as you know, they were huge and incredibly heavy. Take, for instance, the famous Mark I. It was the world’s first electro- mechanical computer and was used during World War 2 by the U.S. Navy. In comparison to 20th- century systems, it could be likened to a battleship: 2.6 meters high, 16 meters wide, 2 meters deep, and weighing a massive 5 tons!
 a programming language so that it can be understood by computers.

It was a sensational breakthrough which opened doors to automatic programming and thus directly to contemporary personal computers (PCs).
Today, computers are at the center of thousands upon thousands of other inventions. They are the heartbeats of the modern world. Computers are every-where – from kitchens to concrete mixers, from planes to pockets, from homes to offices. They see, They listen. They speak. They act. Never in world history has one invention had such an influence on humanity as a whole.
It may interest you to know that without the computer age, there would be no global awareness. Internet, in particular, has created a brand new environment. A new culture has been born – free, rapid, and universal – where people share their knowledge and expertise. Information and communication techniques have been turned upside down, distance has been eliminated, frontiers abolished.

A tremendous interactivity among people has been established through the use of social media today and yet people still don’t see why they need a computer literacy.
I would like to mention something concerning Internet. The inventors in 1990 of the World Wide Web (WWW), which revolutionized the contemporary computer world, did not become millionaires. British Tim Berners-Lee and Belgian Robert Caillau, both researchers at European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, did not make any money through their invention of the WWW. They refused to patent it. They feared that in so doing, the use of the Web would prove prohibitively expensive preventing its use worldwide. Thus, they passed up a fortune so that our world can learn and communicate today, and we should be grateful to them for their foresight and magnanimity.
The invention of the computer with its multitude of programs and new information technologies is transforming the traditional perception of an inventor. A more positive image is emerging. No longer personified by an eccentric crackpot, a crackpot male genius working alone in attic, garage or basement, today's inventors resemble more and more millions of other scientists, industrial researchers and entrepreneurs in workshops or laboratories surrounded by a computer station.
Are you among those still living in the industrial e agwhile you we are in the Computer age.

I hope you enjoyed the class. Forward your question to us.

THANKS FOR READING