Lecture 2 Summary

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS AND INTERNET

Today's lecture was about the birth of computers and internet. Here are some interesting facts my lecturer was telling us:

1) Computers were first produced by IBM in the 1950's. They were first build for government servives to help the military. There were big as and filled up almost an entire room and did only few functions.

2) A Xerox PARC in the early 70's, a think-tank developed concepts such as the mouse, the GUI and pull-down menu that made the personal computer of today possible and apporachable by the general user.

3) The two guyz who started APPLE computers were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozriak. Their first computers were sold for 666.60US$. Fifty computers were their first sale.

4) In 1978 Apple 2 was launched. By the end of two years they had made enough money that neither of the steves would ever have to work again.

5) The internet is not the same as web.

6) Internet is a network of networks (which is often called internetwork). Includes servers, mainframes, other computers etc.

7) Web is just a part of the broader internet which includes many other things as well as the web.

8) Cyberspace - It is a conceptual space where words, relationships, data, wealth and power are manifested by people using computer mediated communication technology.

Some early internet applications:

1) Electronic main(Email)

2) File transfer protocol(FTP)

3) IRC (Internet relay chat)

4) MUDs, Moos, MUSHEes etc (text based games)