Notes from Lecture Two Content

TURING AND THE BIRTH OF THE COMPUTER
(My Break-down of info)

The computer, to my understanding had its beginnings thanks to Charles Babbage and his creation of the “Difference Engine” which was used for mathematical purposes. Unlike computers today, this computer was of a mechanical nature, rather than electronic. Although Babbage was never able to fully complete the computer, he was able to create from one that although still mechanical, was steamed power. An interesting machine I would imagine, considering the lucky individuals of 2009 have everything a power button and a mouse click away.

The first working computer was created by Alan Turing along with mathematicians and cryptographers, it was used to decipher German “Enigma” codes. Moving on from these creations computers came to be commercially produced by a company called IBM during the 50’s. These machines as you could imagine were large and expensive, whilst the expensive part is still present today, technology has ensured that they can come in notebook size. This means that they have become much more practical for everyday use, hence why (I would imagine), the wider public now use them rather than just the military, government, and corporate workers alone.

Not only did computers decrease in size making them more appealing to the general public, but the creation of the mouse, graphical user interface and pull down menus made for easier use, which has been further developed throughout the years. Following these advancements the Personal Computer (PC) was released in 1975. Whilst this was an advancement in itself, it was not perfect and like almost everything it had its downfalls, users were not able to communicate with the computer due to its lack of a language. However, Bill Gates came to create a language known as BASIC which he developed intro a program and later developed a company MICROSOFT which he used to market this program.

Moving on from Bill Gates a well known name when it comes to computers, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are the creators of APPLE, a label, which unless you were born in the 1930’s like my dear old grandparents it would by highly unusual for you not to know. One of their creations was the Apple-I a machine which was made of a singular circuit board without a keyboard or a case. This invention sold for $666.60 in US Dollars and from this they worked to create self contained PC’s, with Wozniak looking to reduce all components of the PC. Two years after Altair was launched Apple II was made public, from there on Apple continued to grow over the years and the PC continued to transform into a toy and a useful business companion, thus causing Apple to consume 50% of the Market and catapulting Steve Jobs into a millionaire.

In the 1980’s IBM wanted to break into the PC Market, they took on a man called Bill Lowe who promised IBM they would have a product in one year. This was a major selling point to IBM as they were a relatively slow moving company that had never created something in as little as a year. Lowe’s product relied on shelf products from various companies that would be put together to form one package. This didn’t prove to be a problem, however the software then needed to be made.

In order to run computers there are two types of software required, the language and the Operating System. IBM considered Digital Research Inc and Mircrosoft for their software, deciding to go with Microsoft (Bill Gates). They then went on to find an Operating System called Kudos, Microsoft bought it from Seattle Computer Products for $50,000. IBM worked with it and it running within 4 months (known as PC DOS 1.0), licensing it out to the marketplace for $50 each.

IBM continued to grow over the years and attained a large amount of the market share due to its association with Microsoft. IBM and Microsoft created their own GUI (Graphical User Interface) known as Windows and by the time Windows 3 was launched it saw Apple go on a downturn. During this time Steve Job’s left Apple, but returned in 1998 to resurrect the Apple company, this came with the success of the iMac line.

In 1991 a Finnish Programmer (Linus Torvalds) created an operating system (GNU/Linux) with contributions from people around the world via the internet. This came to be a free operating system which was an alternative those of Windows, MacOS, and Unix.

THE INTERNET, THE WEB AND CYBERSPACE

The internet was created by RAND corporation in 1960, it was created with the intention to have something that could survive a nuclear war. This would be achieved, due to the fact that it had no central control, therefore being able to reform itself by communication services left behind. The internet (as understood today) consist of servers, mainframes and personal computers along with other devices that use Computer Mediated Communications, technology, loosely connected by the telephone and broadband cable and satellite services which links millions of people around the world into and information-sharing system.

As according to the US Federal Networking Council the internet is a global information system that:

(i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons;
(ii)is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and
(iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein.

Researchers (during the creation of RAND’s interenet) were working on a system called Packet Switching (breaking down messages into small chunks and then transmitting them from one computer to another). This creation was believed to be able to connect computers across long distances. RAND was interested in this concept and went on to incorporate this into their already made system. This was funded by the US Defence Force, but was hi-jacked by researchers who wanted to share information at a distance, ARPANET was then developed. Originally it was used to download academic data, however this advanced to emailing which allowed hobbyists, hi-jackers and the counter culture to use it for their own purposes with Bulletin Board Servers and MUDs- Multiple User Domains.

WORLD WIDE WEB (WWW, OR WEB)
The web emerged in the 1990’s, it merges the technique of internetworking and hypertext which shares all information accessible as part of a seamless hypertext space. This was initially difficult to use until the creation of browsers such as Mosaic and Netscape (this took place in the early 1990’s). A common misconception of the web is that it is the same as the internet. The web is just a part of the internet, which includes a range of different aspects other than, but also including the web.

CYBERSPACE
Cyberspace and its concept was (we will say) created by William Gibson, who took the idea of cybernetics (the study of particular types of systems of control and communication to living organisms and machines such as computers and extrapolated it into a world where the economy was dominated by CMC). A working definition of cyberspace might be: A conceptual space where words, relationships, data, wealth and power are manifested by people using Computer Mediated Communication technologies.

EMAIL
Email is a virtual system which can send mail to one or more people at any given time, unfortunately this system can attract junk mail, otherwise known as SPAM. Those who use Microsoft Windows Operating Systems Email viruses, Worms and Trojans can be a problem due to the way particular windows programs addresses react with these viruses.

Mail software systems include Microsoft Outlook (which has a reputation for being a virus target) as well as open source applications such as Mozilla Thunderbird. Webmail and its many different services such as Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail etc now comes with the benefit of being able to access it online. In addition there is the added benefit of being able to have multiple accounts to meet your different needs when it comes to emailing.
Through the email, just about anything you can do on the computer can be sent (photos, files, animation, video, worksheets etc) a majority of mail applications allows you to use Encryption. This scrambles the content unless you have the correct key or password, which stops others being able to read your email.

FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a system which allows you to directly upload or download files from another computer onto your computer with minimal requirements for compatibility. It also allows you to upload a file, (including a web page) on to a server.

INTERNET RELAY CHAT (IRC)
Is a real time chat system which became popular in the 90’s as it allowed people to chat with each other in real time through type (known as Synchronous” medium of communication). It was once the best place to get music and other files, however, it still has a reputation as a place for hackers and other dodgy types lurking around.
On IRC you can create a virtual entity, have a virtual relationship, you can have a virtual house, do virtual housework and even find out whether you would like to be gay, straight or single.
Internet Relay Chat rooms are all over the world, in order to use them you need to get an IRC client which allows you to get onto the networks. (Chat-rooms on IRC a referred to as channels)

MUD’s, MOO’s, MUSHes, etc.
These are all variants on the same kind of program usually referred to as MUDs (Multiple User Dungeon, because it was based on Dungeons and Dragons). Rather than being graphics-based, MUDs are text only (when you logged in you would be given a text description of what the world was like and you would react to this world in text as well).

MORE RECENT INTERNET APPLICATIONS
Instant Messaging (IM)
Peer-to-Peer (p2p) file sharing
Portable Audio (MP3s, AAC, FLAC, OGG, etc) and Podcasting
VoIP and Voice chat (Skype)
Facebook/Myspace
Twitter