Lecture 2 Summary

Today's lecture focused on a selective history of computers and the Internet;

• the definition 0f a computer comes from the 1700's in part from the field of astronomy, where people were trying to complete large algebra. These people paid others a small amount to 'compute' small parts of their algebra problem, which they would then piece together to make a whole.


• computer = calculate


• computer means someone or something that performs mathematical functions or calculations.


• the early form of the calculator was an abacus which was used to sum numbers and make calculations.


• Charles Babbage was a key person for inventing 'counting machines'.


• He produced automated machines which would do the calculations for u humans.


• this helped to 'automate our ability to do large mathematical problems'.


• Babbage' wife Ada Lovelace was also an influential player in the progress of these machines, as she would fix them up when needed so as to work.


• She invented the logic behind his creations, or the so called earliest form of 'program language'.


• this 'language' was about telling the computer what to do.


• Ada Lovelace was considered the first computer programmer from the 1700's.

• In the 1900's during world war II, people were all about trying to encript their secret military messages.


• the English used computer calculators to try and crack the code of the enemy.


• Allen Turing was influentional in this process. An accentric mathemitician, he spent alot of time working on math problems, and specifically, trying to crack the german military codes.


• Although Allen Turing helped the military win the war, he was ostresized for his sexual preference and ended up comitting suicide. Later, a letter was sent to his family acknowledging his contribution and apologising for his treatment.


• He came up with the idea that whilst having a conversation with a computer it should be so intellegent so that you cant even tell that it is a computer.


• Another important concept was the 'enigma machine', which worked like a typewriter and had wheels which were positioned to allign in specific ways.


• the idea was that the weakest link in security (such as a war) was the people.


• this continued on to the idea of 'social engineering', which used the power of deduction based on people.


• in this way it was figured out that the code was Hitler's birthday.


• through WWII computer's rapidly developed.

• the first home use computer or 'personal computer' was developed in 1975, however so called 'personal computers' were around as early as the 1940's.


• IBM built massive computers for military use, and one of their biggest clients was teh Natzis.


• 'Xerox Parl' was invloved in people having computer's for business purposes.


• computer 'Hackers' stems from the time when people put the ideas about computers together and 'hacked' or put the pieces of their computer together.


• 'hacker' originally meant computer expert.


• However it was given a bad name in the 1980's and associated with criminals.


• 'hackers' had meetings to discuss software and etc.


• Bill Gates sold his software to a company called IBM after he was approached by them.


• One of the first software programs was a calculator program similar to excel