Lecture 2 summary

Today was the second lecture of the course New Communication Technologies. Within this second lecture the brief history of computers and the Internet was discussed.

Adam discussed the history of computers during the first half of the lecture. A prominent person in the early years of the computer was Charles Babbage whom invented the first digital computer. Computers, which I learnt today was primarily used for mathematical calculations, which is far from what computers are used for today!!!


The daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, Ada was the first to conceive a machine which was was able to compose and play music, produce graphics and be of everyday use.
Alan Turing was responsible for the development of the computer. He hypothese that computers could be capable of computing numbers, thus the first computer was produced - the Bombe which to my suprised was used to break German codes during the war.
Gordon Moore introduced the Moore's Law which was the capacity of microchips doubling every two years.

Adam also discussed various large computer manufacturers such as Xerox PARC, Apple, IBM and Macintosh.

The second half of the lecture Adam outlined the Internet and its complexities. We viewed a short movie called Warriors of the Net which was a very informative and easy to understand explanation on the workings of the Internet. One thing that Adam noted " it is important to understand that the internet is not the same thing as the web ", this is a common misinterpretation that people make.

Today's lecture was interesting and informative - it gave me a different perspective of the Internet and the early stages of its creation.