The decade of the 1980's saw an explosion in computer technology and computer usage that
deeply changed society. Today computers are a part of everyday life, they are in their
simplest form a digital watch or more complexly computers manage power grids, telephone
networks, and the money of the world. Henry Grunwald, former US ambassador to Austria
best describes the computer's functions, "It enables the mind to ask questions, find
answers, stockpile knowledge, and devise plans to move mountains, if not worlds."
Society has embraced the computer and accepted it for its many powers which can be used
for business, education, research, and warfare.
The first mechanical calculator, a system of moving beads called the abacus, was
invented in Babylonia around 500 BC. The abacus provided the fastest method of
calculating until 1642, when the French scientist Pascal invented a calculator made of
wheels and cogs. The concept of the modern computer was first outlined in 1833 by the
British mathematician Charles Babbage. His design of an analytical engine contained all
of the necessary components of a modern computer: input devices, a memory, a control
unit, and output devices. Most of the actions of the analytical engine were to be done
through the use of punched cards. Even though Babbage worked on the analytical engine
for nearly 40 years, he never actually made a working machine.
In 1889 Herman Hollerith, an American inventor, patented a calculating machine that
counted, collated, and sorted information stored on punched cards. His machine was first
used to help sort statistical information for the 1890 United States census. In 1896
Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company to produce similar machines. In 1924,
the company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation. IBM made
punch-card office machinery that dominated business until the late 1960s, when a new
generation of computers made the punch card machines obsolete.
The first fully electronic computer used vacuum tubes, and was so secret that its
existence was not revealed until decades after it was built. Invented by the English
mathematician Alan Turing and in 1943, the Colossus was the computer that British
cryptographers used to break secret German military codes. The first modern
general-purpose electronic computer was ENIAC or the Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Calculator. Designed by two American engineers, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, Jr.,
ENIAC was first used at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946.
The invention of the transistor in 1948 brought about a revolution in computer
development, vacuum tubes were replaced by small transistors that generated little heat
and functioned perfectly as switches. Another big breakthrough in computer
miniaturization came in 1958, when Jack Kilby designed the first integrated circuit. It
was a wafer that included transistors, resistors, and capacitors the major components of
electronic circuitry. Using less expensive silicon chips, engineers succeeded in putting
more and more electronic components on each chip. Another revolution in microchip
technology occurred in 1971 when the American engineer Marcian Hoff combined the basic
elements of a computer on one tiny silicon chip, which he called a microprocessor. This
microprocessor the Intel 4004 and the hundreds of variations that followed are the
dedicated computers that operate thousands of modern products and form the heart of
almost every general-purpose electronic computer.
By the mid-1970s, microchips and microprocessors had reduced the cost of the thousands
of electronic components required in a computer. The first affordable desktop computer
designed specifically for personal use was called the Altair 8800, first sold in 1974.
In 1977 Tandy Corporation became the first major electronics firm to produce a personal
computer. Soon afterward, a company named Apple Computer, founded by Stephen Wozniak and
Steven Jobs, began producing computers. IBM introduced its Personal Computer, or PC, in
1981, and as a result of competition from the makers of clones the price of personal
computers fell drastically. Just recently Apple Computer allowed its computers to be
cloned by competitors.
During this long time of computer evolution, business has grasped at the computer,
hoping to use it to increase productivity and minimize costs. The computer has been put
on assembly lines, controlling robots. In offices computers have popped up everywhere,
sending information and allowing numbers to easily be processed. Two key words that
apply today are downsizing and productivity. Companies hope the increase worker
productivity, meaning less working which then allows for downsizing. The computer is
supposed to be the magic wand that will make productivity shoot through the roof, but in
some cases the computer was a waste of time and money.
Reliance Insurance is an example of computer technology falling flat on its face,
wasting a great deal of money, while producing little or no results. "Paper Free in
1983" was the slogan Reliance used because the it had just spent millions of dollars to
put computers everywhere and network them. The employees had E-mail and other programs
that where to eliminate paper and increase productivity. The company chiefs sat back and
waited for a boom in productivity that never arrived.
Other examples of the disappointments of computer are not hard to find. Citicorp bank
lost $200 million dollars developing a system in the 1980's that gave up to the minute
updates on oil prices. Knight-Ridder tried to develop a home shopping network on the
television, and lost $50 million. Wang laboratories almost went under when they put all
of their resources toward developing imaging technology that no one wanted. Ben &
Jerry's ice cream put in an E-mail system and out of 200 employees less than 30% used the
system. Everything attempted then is currently very common today; on-line services
provide stock and commodities quotes, QVC is a home shopping channel on cable television,
almost every picture in a magazine has been retouched with imaging technology, and even
JRHS has an E-mail system that seems to be valuable.
Other corporations have seized computer technology and used it to reduce costs, but
usually the human factor is lost. The McDonalds fast food chain is an example of a
company that has embraced computers to help productivity and lower operating costs. The
McDonalds kitchen has become a computer timed machine, "You don't have to know how to
cook, you don't have to know how to think. There's a procedure for everything and you
just follow the procedure" . The workers have in essence become robots controlled by the
computer to achieve maximum productivity. The computer knows the procedure and alerts
the worker of events in the procedure and all the worker must do is execute what the
beeper of buzzer means. With such little knowledge of the making of the food, workers
have become disposable, "It takes a special kind of person to be able to move before he
can think. We find people like that and use them until they quit." .
McDonalds managers work even more closely with the computers that control them. The
computer generates a graph of expected business and tells the manager how many people to
schedule and when, all the manager does is fill in the blanks with names. McDonalds
computers also keep close track of sales and expenditures, "The central office can check
. . . how many Egg McMuffins were sold on Friday from 9 to 9:30 two weeks ago or two
years ago, either in an entire store or at any particular register." . The main things
computers do in a manual job is to speed things up, "Thinking generally slows this
operation down." , and for this reason computers have made manual jobs ones of extreme
monotony and no creativity.
White collar jobs have remained virtually the same, computers have just helped to
enhance creativity and attempted to raise productivity. E-mail, word processors,
spreadsheets, and personal organization programs are widely used by white collar workers.
These programs help to make impressive presentations, communicate, and keep track of
everything so the worker can get more done, and therefore less workers are needed,
dropping costs. This has not happened, over the last 30 years white collar worker
productivity has remained the same, while blue collar productivity has almost quadrupled.
This is due mainly to the fact that white collar workers are required to think and adapt
to situations quickly, which computers at the moment are unable to due, they only follow
code to give a planned response. The blue collar job requires less knowledge and skill,
and so is easily replaceable by a computer.
Computers though have not been a failure in business, they allow information to be
shared very quickly. The home office is a product of computers, people can work from
home instead of going into an office. This has not become very popular due to the lack
of touch between people, the loss of contact. It is the human factor that helps to make
business run, the random thought that saves the day, something a computer is incapable of
doing. Computers may help quicken business, but they will never replace people, only
reduce their knowledge or creativity by automating the process.
Another form of computers is attempting to totally eliminate people from the picture.
Expert systems are large mainframe computers that have the knowledge of an expert
individual loaded into it, and makes decisions that are very complex. An expert in field
is chosen and interviewed for sometimes over a year about their job and how they make
decisions. All of this knowledge is refined and put into a computer. Another person
then enters some statistics into the finished machine and magically a large printout will
come out of the machine in minutes with the answers. Expert systems are used mainly in
large investing corporations, but some have been developed to help diagnose diseases.
The hope is one day a patient will lie down and a couple of sensors and probes will go
over the body and then a computer printout will have the name of your illness and the
drug to cure it. Expert systems have been used very little mainly due to their high
price and because of the lack of trust in them.
Computers have also reached into other places besides business, schools. Children sit
in front of computers and are drilled or taught about certain subjects selected by the
teacher. This method of teaching has come under fire, some people believe the computer
should be a tool not a teacher, while others believe why learn from a normal teacher when
a computerized version of the best can teach. The technology of today could allow for a
teacher in another country to teach a class through video confrencing. The attempts to
spread computer technology into the class room have produced results and taught lessons
as to how computers should be applied.
The Belridge school district in McKittrick California was one of the most technological
school districts in America. Every student had two computers, one at school and one at
home, which contained many brand new teaching programs. The high school had a low
powered television station that broadcasted every day. The classes were small and parent
involvement was high. Even with all of these wonderful things one-third of the first
grade class was below the national average in standardized tests after the first year.
Parents were enraged that after all of the money spent nothing had happened, that the
technology hadn't made the children become smarter, and so all of the computers were gone
the next year and traditional teaching was put back in place.
Belridge is an extreme example of people expecting the computers to do magic and make
the children learn faster and better, much like companies hoped to raise productivity.
The children were left to learn from the computer, which they did, but nothing changed
things actually got worse. One parent realized, ". . . good teachers are the heart and
soul of teaching." , because computers can only present facts and explain them to a
certain extent, where as a good teacher can explain to the student in many ways.
The US has about 2.7 million computers for 100,000 schools, a ratio of about 1 computer
for every 16 students. Experts say that, "Computers work best when students are left
with a goal to achieve. . ." , and students are allowed to achieve this goal with proper
direction from a teacher. After many attempts in the 1980's to put computers into the
classroom a Presidential Plan was drawn up:
1. Give computers to teachers before students.
2. Move them out of the labs and into classrooms.
3. One workstation at least for every two or three students.
4. Still use flashcards for practice.
5. Give teachers time to restructure around computers.
6. Expect to wait 5 to 6 years for change.
This plan was to help guide the use of computers into the classroom, and maximize their
ability as learning tool. The computer will enhance the future classroom, but it cannot
be expected to produce results quickly. One thing the use of computers in the classroom
will help with is the fear of computers and their ability to confuse people. Early
exposure to computers will help increase computer use in society years from now.
The biggest network of connected computers is broadly referred to as the internet,
information superhighway or electronic highway. The internet was started by the Pentagon
as a way for the military to exchange information through computers using modems. Over
the years the internet has evolved into a public resource containing limitless amounts of
information. The main parts of the internet are FTP (file transfer protocol), gopher,
telnet, IRC (internet relay chat), and the world wide web. FTP is used to download large
files from one computer to another quickly. Gopher is much like the world wide web, but
without the graphical interface. Telnet is a remote computer login, this is where most
of the hacking occurs. The IRC is just chat boards where people meet and type in there
discussions, but IRC is becoming more involved with pictures of the people and 3-D
landscapes. Besides IRC, these internet applications are becoming obsolete due to the
world wide web.
The most popular of the internet applications is the world wide web or WWW. It is a
very graphical interface which can be easily designed and is easy to navigate. The WWW
contains information on everything and anything possibly imaginable. Movies, sound
bytes, pictures, and other media is easily found on the WWW. It has also turned into a
business venture, most large businesses have a "page" on the WWW. A "page" is a section
of the WWW that has its own particular address, usually a large business will have a
server with many "pages" on it. A sample internet address would be
"http://www.sony.com/index.html", the http stands for hypertext transfer protocol, or how
the information will be transferred. "www.sony.com" is the serve name, it is usually a
mainframe computer with a T-1 up to T-3 fiber optic telephone line. The server is
expensive not because of the computer but because of the telephone line, a T-1 line which
transfers up to 150 megabytes of information per second costs over $1000 a month, while a
T-3 line transferring 450 megabytes of information can cost over $10,000 a month. The
"index.html" is the name of the page on the server, of which the server could have
hundreds.
The ability for all of this information has made for a virtual society. Virtual malls,
virtual gambling, virtual identities, and even virtual sex have sprung up all over the
internet wanting your credit card number or your First Virtual account number. First
Virtual is a banking system which allows so much money to be deposited at a local bank to
be spent on the internet. Much of the internet has become a large mail order catalog.
With all of these numbers and accounts, questions come up about the security of a persons
money and private life, which aren't easily answered.
Being safe is a new craze today, protection from hackers and other people who will steal
personal secrets and then rob someone blind, or protection from pornography or white
supremacists or millions of other things on the internet. The recent communications bill
that passed is supposed to ban pornography on the internet, but the effects aren't
apparent. There are still many US "pages" with pornography that have consent pages
warning the user of the pornography ahead. Even if the US citizens stopped posting
pornography, other nations still can and the newsgroups are also international. Programs
such as Surf Watch and Internet Nanny have become popular, blocking out pornographic
sites. The main problem or beauty of the internet is the lack of a controlling party,
"It has no officers, it has no policy making board or other entity, it has no rules or
regulations and is not selective in terms of providing services." . This is a society
run by the masses that amounts to pure anarchy, nothing can be controlled or stopped.
The internet is so vast many things could be hidden and known to only a few, for a long
time if not forever. The real problem with controlling the interenet is self control and
responsibility, don't go and don't see what you don't want to, and if that amounts to a
boring time, then don't surf the net.
When speaking of computers and the internet one person cannot go unmentioned, Bill
Gates, the president of Microsoft. Microsoft has a basic monopoly on the computer world,
they write the operating system and then the applications to run of the system, and when
everyone catches up, they change the version. Bill Gates started the company in the
early 1980's with DOS, or Disk Operating System, which just recently was made obsolete by
Windows 95. Bill Gates has now just ventured into the internet and is now tangling with
Netscape, the company with the Internet monopoly. Netscape gives away its software for
free to people who want the basic version, but a version with all of the bells and
whistles can be purchased. Microsoft is hard pressed to win the internet battle, but
will take a sizable chunk of Netscape business. Bill Gates will likely keep running the
software industry, with his recent purchase of Lotus, a popular spreadsheet, he further
cornered the market.
Computers are one of the most important items society posses today. The computer will
be deeply imbedded in peoples lives even more when the technology progresses more and
more. Businesses will become heavily dependent as video confrencing and working from
home become increasingly more feasible, so businesses will break down from large
buildings into teams that communicate electronically. Schools may be taught by the best
teachers possible and software may replace teachers, but that is highly unlikely. The
internet will reach into lives, offering an escape from reality and an information source
that is extremely vast. Hopefully society will further embrace the computer as a tool,
a tool that must be tended to and assisted, not left to do its work alone. Even so
computers will always be present, because the dreams of today are made with computers,
planned on computers, and then assembled by computers, the only thing the computer can't
do is dream, at least right now.
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