A Selective History of Computing and the Internet

Today's lecture was on the history of computing and the internet.
Following will be a brief summary of the main contents.....

The term computer referred to ppl who used to form mathematical equations. Teams of people would each work out small portions of the equation and then these portions would be put together to solve the whole equation. Basically it meant "forming mathematical calculations to certain rules and instructions."

• During this time (1700's), Charles Babbage invented counting machines to calculate large equations. Ada Byron helped create these contraptions, and ensured that they "worked."
• Allan Turning, an englishman, was involved in breaking the codes of enemies during World War I. The concept of artificial intelligence was strongly influenced by him also.
• In the 1970's IBM produced the first commercial computers..... with the help of Bill Gates of course! Bill Gates was responsible for creating the language of computers so that individuals would have a way that they could communicate with it and understand it. The first commercial computer's purpose were word processing, basic accounting and some games. Previously computers were only thought about for war purposes.
• A computer hacker was originally a computer expert. The term originated from the days computers were made from kits and the expert "hacked" them together.
• During the revolution of the IBM computer Apple were also creating computers for commercial use.... these geniuses went by the names of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.
• THE INTERNET IS 40 YEARS OLD! (woah). When you think about it thats not very old.... but I can't imagine my life without the internet!
• Ray Tomlinson invented the email.... it's structure has not changed over the last 38 years.
• TCP/IP: the way computers "talk" to eachother. This was invented before military requested a way to communicate with eachother. The inventers of TCP/IP made a cultural decision to make TCP/IP free..... the internet would not be as huge as it is today without this decision.
• In 1979 the first online forum was created (Usenet).
• In 1982 emoticons were created...... allowing individuals to express themselves through the language of a computer.
• The internet and the world wide web are not the same! The internet is the whole spectrum of things that you can do on a computer e.g., filesharing, msn. The world wide web is one small part of the internet.... basically everything you see through a web browser.
• Cyberspace: aka the internet (represents the internet in abstract form). William Gibson wrote about computer networks in the 80's. He was a science fiction writer at the time.