Chicklider Biography

Currently, computers are used for everything in life. For example, from researching for a large essay project to playing video games with friends. “From the outset, computers were weighed for both military and commercial significance, and hence they straddled the very institutional boundaries that central to this study. It is also significant that computers became valuable research instruments in nearly all disciplines.” (Akera, 2). The first digital computer was constructed in 1946 by John Mauchly, a professor, and Presper Eckert, an inventor. “They met by chance in 1941 at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Engineering. They soon developed a revolutionary vision: to use electricity as a means of computing--in other words, to make electricity "think."” (McCartney, 1). They were ignored by their colleagues, but in 1943 they were becoming more well known and was funded by the U.S Army. The U.S Army was seeking for a contraption that can quickly calculate ballistic missile trajectories in wartime Europe and Africa (McCartney, 1). John Mauchly and Presper Eckert led a team that constructed the computer that occupied 1,800 square feet and weighed thirty tons. They named the large computer, ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. The process of building this machine was not an effortless task, Mauchly and Presper and their team had to overcome many problems

If you ask people to name one of the most important technologies of the twentieth century, one of the answers would most certainly be the computer. A computer, however, is not a technology all to itself. Many other technologies went into the modern home computers of today, including the mouse. Douglas C. Engelbart, a worker at the SRI (Stanford Research Institute), invented the mouse in 1964. However, the process of the invention of the mouse was not instantaneous and without effect on the realm of computing and society. In this paper I will be examining the problems that had to be overcome and the technologies that had to be invented for the mouse to become a reality. It also

It is important to know the history of the internet. The internet is a worldwide network of computer systems that are connected to each other by cables (Howe, 2012). The internet first started out as a military experiment. In 1957, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created by the United States department of Defense (Computer History Museum, 2004). The project was started after the Russians launched a satellite into space for communication reasons. The satellite was called SPUTNIK (Computer History Museum, 2004). It was rumored that President Eisenhower got worried and decided to get the United States to launch its own satellite. They recruited Dr. Joseph C. Licklider of MIT, was made head of the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO)(Computer History Museum, 2004). Their purpose of the project was to focus on improving the military use of computer information.

Computers in general give people the ability to complete tasks that would have taken days or weeks to complete with the clicks of a few buttons. As technologies continue to grow the amount of adjustments that will be needed to make will be astronomical. However, society is aiming to help people gain the skills needed to push mankind further. In Davidson’s essay, she discusses how computers and technology can be put to many applicable situations. While working with her students, the “Duke students came up with dozens of stunning new ways to learn [and] almost instantly students figured out that they could record lectures on their iPods and listen to them for leisure” (Davidson 52). This advancement took a few weeks at one college campus in the United States when the technology was still being developed. Now, students have adapted to begin working across the globe to further society with new ideas for applying these technologies. These students now work diligently to make technology as effortless as possible so that their programs will be what will be used in the future. Gilbert discusses how when people are judged by a panel of others they tend to feel worse about themselves but, when dealing with computers people are only judged by one computer which tells them

Joseph Licklider had a pretty good childhood, he was able to see and feel technology throughout it. Joseph Licklider was born on March 11th, 1915, in St. Louis Missouri being the only child. His family members all loved him and they were Daniel Parron Licklider (father), Permelia Emeline DeWitt (mother), Margaret Robnett (spouse), and then himself. He grew up loving anything that had to do with technology especially cars. While he was growing up, his dad was a Baptist for a church, so he would go to church every Sunday morning. When he was a teenager he would refuse to pay more than $50 for a car and only liked Junker cars. The reason was to be able to take it apart and put it back together to see how it worked.

Big Ideas From the Computer Age As more and more aspects of our lives - typewriters, phones, cameras, cars, etc. - become computerized, the need to understand the world of computer programmers becomes more and more apparent. In Hackers & Painters, computer science expert and painter Paul Graham examines the world of computer programmers and what motivates them to create the most important technical breakthroughs. While discussing the many issues that have accompanied the computer's rise to prominence in our lives, Graham attempts to answer many of the questions that have emerged along the way.

Our leading military minds asked themselves a very important question, “What would happen if we were unable to communicate?” They were concerned about what would happen if our communication system was compromised. Then in 1962, a solution to this scary question was answered by a brilliant scientist named J.C.R. Licklider. He proposed that we create a new communication system that would be comprised of computers and would allow our military leaders to communicate. Proposing a plan, and putting that plan into action are different monsters entirely.

“We can see only a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.” Alan Turing, a forgotten hero, said this when challenged with the prospect of technology that could think for itself. This figure hidden in the shadows of history has impacted every aspect  of society. Because of his accomplishments in the realm of computing, the vast majority of the population has handled an electronic device. Turing, truly a catalyst for social change, who society tried to bury because of his homosexuality, a crime of gross indecency in the United Kingdom until 1967 is responsible for the electronic-reliant population the majority of humanity lives in today (“Alan Turing: Creator of modern computing”).

At the age of 16, William Higginbotham enrolled in a high school physics class. He then earned an undergraduate degree from Williams College in 1932, and continued his studies at Cornell University. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in 1932. Once he finished his studies, the scientist continued to pursue his career. This man loved physics, and he knew he would make physics his career at the young age of 16. This man was devoted to his

Overall, the book tells us about the people involved the making of the Internet. Through the efforts of these geniuses, we see that the work on the "Arpanet" and Internet, as in the rest of the field of computing, was a team effort, with contributions from many individuals and organizations. And, as stated earlier, this effort also had much government support. Thus, many people and institutions were responsible in the making of this incredible instrument of computer technology.

As time proceeded forward, immensely intelligent individuals such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates emerged into the digitized era, bringing along with them the birth and technological diffusion of the personal computer to the entire world. While these two individuals are attributed to the creation of such a practical device, it appears as if history has forgotten about the individual who laid the initial groundwork for such innovators

Joseph Licklider had a lot of knowledge growing up. He enrolled at Harvard University before joining the faculty at MIT. He also studied math and physics and received a doctorate in psychology from the University of Rochester. Licklider attended Washington State University in St. Louis where he was awarded three bachelor’s degrees in math, psychology, and physics. Later in the year, he graduated.

The conceptual foundation for the creation of the Internet was significantly developed by three individuals and a research conference, each of which changed the way we thought about technology by accurately predicting its future: Vannevar Bush wrote the first visionary description of the potential uses for information technology with his description of the "memex" automated library system. Norbet Wiener invented the field of Cybernetics, inspiring future researchers to focus on the use of technology to expand human compatibilities. The 1956 Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence Conference crystallized the concept that

The technological progress during the past sixty years has brought about an explosion in knowledge. Today we have super computers imitating the human brain and even beating it in various fields like fast data processing, huge memory storage and quick retrieval capacity. These super computers can do as much as Terra (10) floating point operations per second (FLOPS) and have a 128 bit word length. The personal

According to David A Mindell, “The era of cyberspace and the internet, with its emphasis on computer as a communication device and as a vehicle for human interactions connect to a longer history of control systems that generated computers as networked communication device.”