Today's lecture focused on the history of the computer and the internet (and its mysterious past). According to the lecture, the concept of the computer originated from Charles Babbage who proposed the idea of building a mechanical calculator to tabulate polynomial functions. The funny thing is, Babbage was funded several times by different organisations which invested in his invention. But after a decade without progress, his fund denied. The only true progress that Babbage had ever acheived was with the help of a young mathematician named Ada Lovelace, who created the world's first program for Babbage's work.
The lecture showed the milestones of the development of the computer, throughout the 20th century and how it had evolved from a machine the size of a bus that could only read a very limited amount of programs, to something smaller than a book with the capacity to run programs over 9000 times more than the former
The Internet was another great feat of the progress of the computer. The concept of the Internet originated in the 1960s by the US Military who suggested a way of passing imformation from one place to another without being detected by enemy signals. The concept of the Internet is pretty crazy if you think about it; invisible letters being passed back and forth that can only be read through a machine.
By the 90s the Internet had become commercialized and was available for the general public. This opened doors as a new way of communication, such as electronic mail, Internet Relay Chat and others.
I felt this lecture was important for me in understanding the ways of the computer and the Internet and its development throughout the years. Like the development of film, the the computer and the Internet simply progressed without understanding what its potentials could possibly be and where it's advancement could take the human race
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