Week 3 - Response to Lecture

This week our lecture was based on a short history of computers and the internet.

We learned that there is not one sole individual responsible for creating the computer, however one of the first people responsible was Charles Babbage. Here is a excerpt from the lectures notes:

"The computer has its origins in various adding machines, most notably Charles Babbage's 19th century Difference Engine which was designed to calculate and print mathematical tables. Babbage was aided in his wonderings about the Analytical Engine by an aristocratic woman with a creative approach to mathematics, Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace."

 However the serious work required for the development of the computer was done by Alan Turing. 

Turing studied quantum mechanics, probability, logic at Cambridge University and wrote a crucial paper clarifying the computability of numbers and the possibility of a machine to compute them, On Computable Numbers. During the Second Word War, Turing worked at Bletchley Park, where with teams of mathematicians and cryptographers to devise the first working computer,The Bombe which they used to break secret German 'Enigma' codes. After the War, Turing investigated programming, neural nets, and the prospects for artificial intelligence.  

We also leaned that computers were first commercially produced by IBM in the 1950's. The first generation of computers were large, unwieldy and expensive machines for military, government and corporate work but it quickly became apparent that computers would get smaller, quicker and less expensive at an exponential rate.

Consequently we then went on to discuss Apple, Microsoft, and Xerox PARC. All played key roles in the creation of the computer.


TUTESPARK:


The Tutespark for week 3 is to find at least 3 (three) examples of digital devices that are not electronic.

Preferably they should be communication technologies.

To help with your search you should define:- digital, analogue, communication and electronic

 Please supply references.

Include some pictures.