1. Computers and Society: Historical Review Kathy E. Gill 7 October 2003

2. Overview History of computing technology History of the Internet Communications Theories

3. Quotable 1 "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876

4. Quotable 2 Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? -- H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927

5. Quotable 3 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

6. Quotable 4 "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949

7. Quotable 5 "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981 *

8. What is “technology”? tech-nol-o-gy [Gk] 1: technical language; 2a: applied science b: a technical method of achieving a practical purpose 3: a totality of the means employed to provide objects necessary for human sustenance and comfort

9. Technology Knowledge used to solve problems and extend human potential. Technology is about enabling change and amplifying its direction. Technology does not set the sail.

10. Technology and Media Caves in France Paper and charcoal/ink Printing Press Telegraph et al (radio, television) Computer mediated communications

11. Ancient History 8500 BC : Bone carved with prime numbers discovered 1000 – 500 BC : Abacus invented 1500 : da Vinci’s mechanical calculator 1642 : Blaise Pascal, 1st adding device 1714 : 1 st English typewriter patent 1801 : Joseph Jacquard, weaving looms 1st to mechanically control device operations sequence 1822 : Charles Babbage, Father of the Modern Computer and Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace

12. Charles Babbage An eccentric British mathematician and inventor Difference Engine, calculated and printed mathematical tables; 1822 Analytical Engine, the first device considered a computer in the modern sense of the word Planned to use loops of Jacquard’s punch cards to control an automatic calculator, which could then make decisions based on the results of previous computations.

13. Analytical Engine, 1858

14. Ada Byron 1843 : she predicted that Babbage’s “analytical engine” might be used to compose music and produce graphics and would be used for both practical and scientific use She described how Babbage’s engine might calculate Bernoulli numbers. Her plan is regarded as the first “computer program.” Ada, the first ISO-standardized OO programming language; developed by the U.S. Department of Defense in 1979.

15. Modern History (1/3) 1937 : Alan Turing, Turing Machine Theoretical model of a computer 1938 : Claude Shannon’s Master’s Thesis “possibly the most important of the 20 th century” Showed how Boole’s concepts of True and False could be used to represent functions of switches (binary)

16. Modern History (2/3) 1939-1944 : Howard Aiken Harvard Mark I, 1 st large scale digital computer (IBM Automatic Sequence Control Calculator) Used Electromagnetic Relays 1943 : Alan Turing & COLOSSUS WWII machine designed to break German code 1800 vacuum tubes Earliest working programmable electronic digital computer

17. Modern History (3/3) 1943-1946 : ENIAC 1st fully Electronic Computer 18,000 vacuum tubes; 10’ tall, 1000 sq ft of floor space, weighed ~30 tons 1945 : first computer “bug” (literally!) 1949 : John VonNeumann Consultant on Manhattan Project Paper : all basic elements of a stored program computer

18. First Commercial Computers 1951 : 1 st Computer Sold to U.S. Bureau of Census - UNIVAC I 1954 : 1st Computer Sold to Private Corp., General Electric Company - UNIVAC I

19. Recent History (1/4) 1957 : FORTRAN 1 st high-level programming language 1959 : COBOL Common Business Oriented Language 1961 : John F. Kennedy, Space Program

20. Recent History (2/4) 1964 : BASIC Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code 1975 : Bill Gates & Paul Allen, Microsoft 1976 : Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniack, Apple 1977 : Commodore “PET” computer

21. Recent History (3/4) 1979 : 1 st “killer app” 1st Electronic Spreadsheet - VisiCalc 1980 : PC DOS 1981 : IBM - PC 1983 : Apple Macintosh Computer (GUI) 1984 : Laser Printers for PCs High quality affordable printing

22. Recent History (4/4) 1984 : CD-ROMS 1990s : Communications & Multimedia Audio Video Internet - WWW Browsers

23. Categories of Computers Mainframes and PCs that run application software Embedded chips that control machines

24. 1 st Generation 1945-1956 Made to order operating instructions Binary coded programs told it how to operate Difficult to program; limited versatility and speed

25. 2 nd Generation 1955-1963 Assembly language Printers and memory Programming languages Careers

26. 3 rd Generation 1964 - 1971 Quartz clock Integrated circuit Operating systems

27. 4th Generation 1971 - now LSI - Large Scale Integration VLSI - Very Large Scale Integration Chip General consumer usage (ubiquitous computing) Networks

28. 5th Generation ? What will it be like? What changes will be big enough to create this new generation?

29. Technology advances at exponential rates Memory capacity quadruples every 3 years Processor speed doubles every 3 years Number of hosts doubles every year Chip transistor densities double every 18 months at constant prices (Moore’s Law)

30. Computers and Networks Facilitate Concentration of knowledge and control Distribution of knowledge and control Have the power to Amass and interrogate enormous volumes of data Process data at enormous rates for real systems and simulations

31. Computers and Networks Challenge: Constitutional definitions Social structures Lifestyle options None more challenging than “the Net”

32. Internet History 1964 - Rand Corporation Plan for dealing with military and government communications… in the event of a “NUCLEAR WAR”

33. National Network with No Central Authority

34. ARPANET (Rand, MIT, UCLA) 1969 : 1st node on the Internet 1971 : 15 nodes 1982 : TCP/IP

35. Picking Up Speed 1987 : Apple’s Hypertext 1991 : Tim Berners-Lee at European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva conceived the World Wide Web 1993 : National Center for Supercomputing Applications [NCSA] - University of Illinois created a WWW browser named Mosiac

36. Faster... faster... faster April 94 : Mosaic Communications [Clark & Andreesen] Oct 94 : Netscape Beta Released Nov 94 : Mosaic Co ==> Netscape Aug 9, 1995 : Netscape IPO

37. Internet Hosts 1971 : 15 1981 : 213 1985 : 1,961 1990 : 313,000 1994 : 3,864,000 1996 : 9,472,000 2003 : 171,638,297 http://www.isc.org/ds/host-count-history.html

38. Parts of a Society Education Transportation Private Sector Business Government Entertainment Housing Currency (banking) Jobs Space Medicine Anything else?

39. The Net and Society In recent years this one area has affected society more than any other How? What are the issues?

40. What is communication? The imparting, conveying or exchanging of ideas, knowledge, etc The transfer of thoughts and messages by sign and sounds

41. Communication theories Linear or Transmission (Shannon- Weaver, 1948; Lasswell, 1960) Circular (Osgood and Schramm, 1954) Medium Theory (McLuhan et al)

42. Shannon-Weaver (1/3) Information theory is “exceedingly general in scope, fundamental in the problems it treats, and of classic simplicity and power in the results it reaches” (Shannon & Weaver, 1949) Theory of signal transmission

43. Shannon-Weaver (2/3)

44. Shannon-Weaver (3/3) Redundancy is used to offset noise in a channel Noise increases uncertainty What is noise in interactive media?

45. Osgood and Schramm (1/2) Importance of “meaning” One person can be sender and receiver (feedback) Stresses social nature of communication

46. Osgood and Schramm (2/2)

47. Lasswell Formula Who (sender) Says What (message) In What Channel (medium or channel) To Whom (receiver) With What Effect (impact)

48. Medium Theory Assumes… A process of standardization, such as specific historical eras (e.g. oral, print, and electronic) Relational "effects” on consciousness (e.g. "print creates linearity”) Society is simply a reverberation of the medium From Towards an Ecology of Understanding: Semiotics, Medium Theory, and the Uses of Meaning http://www.imageandnarrative.be/mediumtheory/marcleverette.htmhttp://www.imageandnarrative.be/mediumtheory/marcleverette.htm

49. Interactive Communication Interaction between senders and receivers humans and machines a message and its consumers

50. Questions?