Computer part 3

Hi

Again sorry about the quite large gap in time since the last part of this blog story thing. So in the concluding part I am going to go through the history of “Modern computing” and, the apple mania that as swept the land.

At the start of the sixties IMB was the largest company in the world, and virtually the only computer company. Which is quite amusing considering some IBM executive once said “I predict the world will eventually need 5 computers.” They thought at this time that maybe NASA or the USA gov would have one and that was about it. The idea that even ordinary families would have a computer wasn't really taken seriously.
Until about 1976 when two computer scientists named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, built and sold a small computer out of a garage in California. That they named Apple. And it was a reasonable success, showing there was a genuine demand for a computer of the people. IBM thought this was pretty absurd, but still needed to put a competitor of some description out to challenge Apple.
So in 1981 the IBM PC came out. And to be honest by modern standards it was pretty dreadful. There was no mouse just a keyboard, so you couldn't click anything as there was nothing to click. So if you wanted to see any file, you had to type in it's ridiculously long name into the command line operating system. And then you couldn't start moving files without hours of typing away. But besides these massive faults it still sold in the millions and IBM remained the big computerised cheese.
Enter now some groovy Californians who saw the future. These Californians worked for a photo copying company perhaps the most famous the Xerox corporation. Who had a research centre called the Palo Alto research centre in California. There they postulated the idea (that they couldn't build) of what we would call the modern desktop. In this idea the screen was a big box with these weird things called “Icons” that things called “mice” clicked on. And when you clicked on this Icon with your mouse you would be inside another box. You could have pictures, music and even video. At the time that this was being thought up mid to late eighties this seemed like a impossible dream. That many dismissed as mad, in England around this time type writers were still in use!
However Apple thought they could build it and in the year of 1984 Apple under the leadership of Steve Jobs brought out the Apple Macintosh computer. It was everything these people at Xerox had dreamed of, it was the desktop that knocked the clunky command line for six. It was a literal overnight success being bought by the famous Hitchhikers guide Douglas Adams. Understandably IBM was worried and needed to bring out another competing product. However instead of creating another command line system, they got a unknown called Bill gates, who owned a obscure company called Microsoft to set the software for them. While they continued to make the box it went in. So Bill and his team got to work by buying out right a operating system, and then changing it slightly before giving it to IBM. After this Mr Gates went to all the other computer makers and got the rights to putting his software in there machines. The resulting computers were called IBM compatibles. At this point IBM was surmounted as the biggest computer company by Microsoft as they had the rights to the important software systems, meanwhile Apple struggled on against Microsoft and Mr Gates.
I am now going to miss a brief period where Steve Jobs left Apple and return to the story as he too returned to Apple.
In 1996 Steve Jobs came back to Apple after his new company NEXT was merged with his original company Apple. Shortly after his return Apple developed a new operating system 0S X. In the years leading up to the millennium and beyond it is not hard to see that Apple as taken over with it's ever inventive ideas . They have of course brought out the train of ipods and itunes store and the more recent iphone. But perhaps the most famous Apple product from this era is the original imac in it's famous “Bondi blue”. Which was developed with help from a one Johnny Ive from Britain. Among the many features that made this Computer significant, was that it used the standard USB ports that all computers now use. As seen to the right
So that is I think pretty much the history of the computer to about today. I apologise if I have omitted anything.

Thanks for reading

Kyle

Computer part 2

Hi

This is part two of the history of the computer mini blog series. In part one I told the story of Charles Babbage and his difference engine. And how it was never finished in Babbage's lifetime. In this part I am going to tell the story of the WW2 code breakers, Alan Turing and the Colossus computer.
First let's paint the picture from after Babbage's death to the out break of WW2. Well there really isn't much to tell computer speaking. After Babbage's death the difference engine was shelved and, the men with pencils were back in a job. The at the start of the 20th Century WW1 started, at this point there was a chance for Babbage's computer if finished to change the world. The Difference engine was more than a simple pocket calculator, it could do ballistic calculations. Namely the trajectory of shells. This meant WW1 could have been brought to a swifter end, because with accurate shells it would be more likely for the shell to hit the target. Of course this would mean more people would be killed which obviously is not good, but you cannot deny a difference engine computer would have helped end the war. After this Germany was defeated and the treaty of Versailles was brought in. Which ultimately led to the rise of Hitler and the subsequent second world war.
So the year is 1941 Europe is under the Nazi jack boot, and it is the hight of the blitz. England is being bombed nightly. And worst of all vital supply ships are being preyed upon by U boats. The problem is the Germans have secrecy on there side, the U boats use a secret code called the Lorenz cipher under which they would spread orders. What was needed was a way for the British to be able to crack this code, so they could head the U boats off and secure allied shipping.
To achieve this more men with pencils were brought in, these men however were the brightest maths brains from the great universities Oxford, Cambridge and Hull (maybe not Hull). One of this number was a very gifted mathematician called Alan Turing.
Turing was put to work in Hut 8 of Bletchley park, code breaker central. Hear Turing found himself working with some of his old friends and Professors form university. Together they began to work to crack the lorenz cipher. However again there was a problem, like most things done by Humans they weren't fast enough. So complex were these codes that by the time one was cracked it was already redundant. Turing and others realised a better system was needed.
Enter at this point a man from a postal sorting office called Tommy Flowers who saw the future.
Flowers realised that a code was simply a mathematical problem, and that a digital computer which essential just does maths very quickly could crack a code in half the time of a Human. To build this computer Flowers turned to Turing and, together they began to design the workings of the first programmable digital computer. Before Turing and Flowers could build the computer dubbed “Colossus”, they had to pitch the concept to the army top brass. When Flowers predicted the computer would be finished in about a year, the army dismissed the project claiming “The war will probably be over by the time it was finished.”
Fortunately for the free world Flowers knew the war wouldn't be other in a year and, built his computer regardless. Flowers even went so far as to spend £1000 of his own money to ensure it was completed on time. When Colossus was finally finished in 1942/3 the war wasn't other and a faster way of cracking codes was desperately needed.
Thankfully Colossus worked brilliantly and could crack the German high command codes in sometimes less than an hour! The army top brass was so impressed they immediately ordered 10. With Colossus shipping was safe once more and, Britain along with the rest of the allies were given the momentum to ultimately win the war. To the right is an image of a working Colossus.
After WW2 the story of Colossus and it's inventors is much less happy. Bound by the secrecy act Colossus was dismantled and, packed off to some storage facility somewhere never to be used again. Even though it was still in working order. Tommy Flowers was given a small reward from the country for his War work, it was barely enough to cover the money he personally invested. After this Flowers was largely forgotten, a shame for such a innovative man Turing also had a sad future. In 1952 he was charged of Homosexuality which at the time was still classified as a mental illness! He was then found guilty of section 11 of the criminal amendment act, incidentally the same charge the brilliant Oscar Wilde was convicted of more than 50 years earlier. His punishment amounted to a chemical castration! Turing died in 1954 a suicide attempt involving cyanide.
Another tragic end for another brilliant man.
After this Britain's involvement in major computer events subsided and, from then on major advances came from America.
In the next part I am going to go form the sixties to the present day, with the modern Apple phenomena.

Thanks again for reading.

Kyle

Computer part 1

Hi

As a month ago I wrote a post on the Internet and it's inventor the great Tim Berners-Lee, this post is going to be a follow on. With the invention that goes hand in hand with the internet. The Computer.
Love them or loath them Computers are hear to stay and, are as far as I am aware one of the fastest evolving inventions on the planet. But there history is a long and varied one. From there routes in Victorian England, to the military code breakers of WW2. And finally to the present day with the laptop on your desk that can give you at will pretty much anything you want. So here is admittedly a condensed history of the computer.
In the Hey day of the British empire the Victorian superpower ran not on tea but on calculations. Calculations determined everything from the course of ships bound for America, to the quantities needed for factories. So to solve this mountain of calculations computers were brought in. Although they weren't computers as in a calculator, but were in fact men with pencils who would labour ceaselessly to get all these crucial calculations done. However as with everything done by humans there were mistakes, these mistakes meant ships missed port or incorrect quantities were sent to factories. So a more accurate solution was required.
Enter another Brit (I'm not patriotic) called Charles Babbage. Babbage was a well respected mathematician and philosopher, who in his prime rubbed shoulders with the gliteratie of Victorian society. Among other things Babbage worked on the probability of biblical miracles, calculating the probability of being raised from the dead. Don't ask why. He also requested to be lowered into mount Vesuvius as he wanted to know how hot lava was. In essence Babbage was the definition of a Victorian genius and polymath.
In 1882 Babbage turned his attention to the problem of the computer (Men with pencil) and, decided that a mechanical system would yield the correct answer to any equation. And unlike a human thought could not be twisted or misinterpreted. Babbage named his new mechanical computer the not especially brilliant Difference engine and set to work. Although Babbage did not have the resources to build the complete difference engine he could build a small section of it, even incomplete many of the engineers of the Victorian powerhouse could see it's potential, subsequently Babbage received a grant of the government to get to work on the full sized version.
Sadly Babbage never completed his difference engine the money dried up and so did the support. Even those who had previously supported him began to heckle the chancellor of the time said “If the difference engine was ever completed, it should be made to calculate it's own usefulness.” Babbage died in October 1871, so unpopular was he at the time that nobody went to his funeral!
The difference engine was shelved and forgotten about, until to mark the bi centenary of his death, the difference engine was finally completed by the British science museum. And guess what it did work just as Babbage predicted. To right is a image of the completed difference engine. Although compared with modern computers the difference engine is no more than a pocket calculator (although much larger). This machine can do the calculations that the men with pencils spent there lives doing, with barely any exertion what so ever. Which leads me to think that if the difference engine had of been completed in the 1880's the world today would be very different.
So I am going to leave this section of the computer's history there with the great Charles Babbage. In the next part I intend to go from the WW2 code breakers to the present day.

Thanks for reading

Kyle

Guitar

Hi

Just a quick post. As somebody asked me to post a pic of my Guitar on Twitter, this is another of my Acoustic on this blog.

Kyle