Week 2 Reading

Computer Hardware Wiki
Going through all the hardware in a computer made me laugh because within this year, I have replaced my laptop’s hard-drive, power supply, and battery and reloaded its operating system. I pretty much have a “new” computer, considering all the essential parts that have been replaced. It was a sad sad sad laugh.

Moore’s Law Wiki
*The idea of exponential improvement of technology was sounding so optimistic until I got to the “Future Trends” section and this Quote by Moore: “It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens.” I wonder what type of disaster he foresaw and how close he would say we are until we reach it.
*As a librarian, former bookseller, and current book buyer, I related the concept of Moore’s Law to books, particularly textbook. Printers are always coming out with new editions of a title, promising more concise information, better illustrations, and the ultimate learning experience – for the next twelve months. More often than not, this is not caused by any advancement in any given field, but is simply a means of making students buy new textbooks at ridiculous prices. Not that I am bitter or anything.

Computer History Museum
I took a look at the museum’s timeline and found a few interesting entries.
*First off, I was surprised that the first entry was from 1939. It was Hwelett-Packard’s first product, the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, a model of which Walt Disney used for sound effects in Fantasia.
*In 1946, the ENIAC could perform 5,000 operations per second, which sounds impressive to me. If this is a primitive computer, I can’t image how many operations today’s computers can complete per second.
*Direct keyboard input was not developed until 1956.
*The first ATM appeared in 1970. I imagine that some people were very apprehensive about letting a machine handle their money. Now, we are more likely to be apprehensive about human error and would rather let computers do the work.
*Speak & Spell FTW! It was introduced in 1978. Over thirty years and synthetic speech is still quite a ways off from natural speech.
*Microsoft word (1983) is older than I am. I did not know that.
*“Cyberspace” is a term coined in William Gibson’s Neuromancer in 1984. It’s good to see that literature can affect technology.
*DOOM!!! My dad (and later, I) played Doom after its 1993. The creepy sound effects scared me so much I had to play it with the sound off.