History of the Computer

Today we learned about the computer and it's lengthly history. The original ancestor of the computer is the abacus. We also learned that the loom, a machine that automatically creates textiles, is where one of the first forms of programming was created.  In the 19th century George Boole was one of the first to give numerical values to numbers and to operations like multiplication and division. Charles Babbage originated the concept of computers for number crunching and calculations, but no one had the sophistication to create the machine at that time. We also learned that Douglas Engelbart was the creator of the mouse and was a critical developer of hypertext. There are many things that one doesn't think about when pondering about a computer such as the interface, architecture, hardware, software, operating and system languages which are vital to a computers functions. We than went on to learn of artificial intelligence and hackers. One of the most interesting things was that hackers were not always looked down upon. Hackers strived to create programs to be free for every individual to share. Last;ly the most concentrated research and development of computers in recent decades has been in Silicon Valley, California. We have learned a significant amount about the computer and hope to learn much more so that I can have a well rounded opinion about how the most important instrument used today came about and what obstacles it faced in that process.