The Net Effect - Hardcover

Porter, Beth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1841500399 ISBN 13: 9781841500393

Verlag: Intellect Books, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

An overview of the history and impact of the growth of the Internet. The author highlights the connections between the various Net components (the Web, email, and other platforms and protocols) and places them in the wider context of society, its development, and continued evolution. The book is distributed by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Beth Porter worked in the field of television and film for almost three decades before changing her focus exclusively to Information Technology. She now works as an Internet consultant.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Net Effect

By Beth Porter

Intellect Ltd

Copyright © 2001 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84150-039-3

Contents

acknowledgement, 
foreword, 
preamble, 
introduction: the Janus approach, 
section 1: the long & winding slip-road, 
section 2: clear-eyed acumen & blind dreams, 
section 3: the da Vinci syndrome, 
section 4: the internet experience, 
coda: quo vadis, 
index, 

CHAPTER 1

section 1: the long & winding slip-road

Unlike the entrance to a real-life motorway, the slip-road to the Information SuperHighway meanders across surprising landscapes, accumulating helpful roadsigns along the way. Over the centuries systems of distance message relay were supplemented by smoke signals, drums, fire beacons, semaphore, the telegraph, Morse code, and the telephone. They all used symbolic means to send complex data transmitted as small sequential parcels, and not all served the purpose for which they were originally intended. Add the elements of electricity, transistors, and miniaturisation, and it's easy to fit the development of modern computers into the evolving story of connecting our species. Navigation tip: keep a lookout for how often we hitch a lift with the Navy.

As we begin the 21st century, most people recognise a computer in the form of a laptop or personal desk-top at home or at work. It sure didn't start like that!

Anatomy of the Elegant Box

The computer box contains a central processing unit [CPU] which connects to a display device [monitor], pointing device [mouse], various input devices [keyboard, scanner], and various output devices [printer, fax]. Let's trace how its origins as a calculating device resulted in this electronic box of delights. For that we have to re-visit Europe in the mid-17th century.

Various engineers and mathematicians had been developing analogue mechanisms allowing increasingly more comprehensive ranges of calculation. Notable among them was a gear-driven prototype for the first mechanical calculator built in 1623 by University of Tübingen Professor Wilhelm Schickard, who was a friend of the noted astronomer Johannes Kepler. The principles of Schickard's so-called 'calculating clock' which automated addition and subtraction and provided hints for multiplication] would probably have speeded up the development of more sophisticated machines had not the plans been twice misplaced: once contemporaneously during the Thirty Years War from when they remained undiscovered until 1935, and again during WWII until they reappeared in 1956.

In the 1640s, Blaise Pascal, the French mathematical prodigy and philosopher, improved on Shickard's model using a system of rising and falling weights, but the gears on his 'Pascaline' tended to stick, affecting its accuracy. In 1654 Robert Bissaker invented the mechanical slide rule which was used extensively for hundreds of years as the key calculation device.

By 1674 Gottfried von Leibnitz, primarily remembered for inventing calculus, also devised the first semi-automated multiplication system called the 'Stepped Reckoner,' constructed for him by a Monsieur Oliver in Paris. It could handle up to 16 digits, though wasn't entirely reliable. During the following century, others improved somewhat on Leibnitz's design including the Third Earl of Stanhope in England, Mathieus Hahn, and J. H. Mueller, the latter two from Germany.

Then in 1820, a Frenchman Charles de Colmar completed the first mass-produced calculator, which he dubbed the 'Arithmometer.' A commercial success, it remained in use until the turn of the century. Of course it could add and subtract. It also improved on Leibnitz's multipliers and even allowed elementary division.

All these mathematical functions were incorporated into the early analogue computation systems of the late 19th century, first using elaborate rotating gears and shafts, then electronic and hydraulic systems rather than numerical input. They were put to a variety of civil and military uses. For example, British physicist Lord Kelvin devised such a mechanical system to predict tide times, and by WWI similar systems could variously foretell submarine torpedo courses or control aircraft bombsights.

It wasn't until the 1830s that Charles Babbage and the Countess of Lovelace theorised about automating the process with the Analytical Machine or Engine, which could theoretically handle up to 40 digits.

The idea was to devise a more automated mechanism than the slide rule, one which could solve any mathematical problem. They hoped to use thin boards punched through with holes in strategic places, similar to the pattern boards of the Jacquard loom, then employed in the weaving industry. These punch-boards stored data which could then be used in various mathematical calculations. Babbage estimated addition speeds of a few seconds, more complex calculations in under 5 minutes.

The Countess, whom Babbage referred to as "The Enchantress of Numbers," published an analysis of the Engine, declaring it would "weave algebraic patterns just as the Jacquard loom weaves flowers and leaves." She went on to theorise many of the basics still employed in computer programming, including memory storage, data analysis, sub-routines and looping [which she compared to a "snake biting its tail"]. The Countess, Augusta Ada King, was the daughter of the great Romantic poet Lord Byron, and it is after her that the computer language Ada is named. Sadly the Analytical Machine would have required the power of five steam engines and taken up an entire football pitch, so Babbage and the Countess never saw it built.

The principles, however, had been outlined, and it was left to the 29-year-old American Herman Hollerith to patent a mechanism in 1889 which calculated census data by passing a series of punch-cards through an electrical contact. Seven years later Hollerith founded the Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft [Dehomag] which became the German subsidiary of the International Business Machine Company in 1924. IBM was born.

Another vital contribution had already been introduced by British mathematician George Boole, who, in the 1850s, devised an algebraic system using only two digits: one and zero which is why it's known as the binary system. Reducing the number to two allows symbolic representation via switches in either the on or off position. Such switches can be connected to a variety of storage, transmission and/or recording devices.

However complex the combination of numbers, they're represented by ones and zeros, commanding the position of switches to relay the information. And, since the information can represent any kind of data [words, numbers, images, etc], this Boolean logic is what still drives data transfer in today's computers.

The millions of minute on/off switches mounted on a microchip are now called bits, eight of which compose each byte. The speed of data transfer is measured in bytes per second. This forms the basis of representing and manipulating information in small groups or packets, much like the smoke signal or telegraph principle. Complementary to the switching system was the invention in 1907 of the triode vacuum tube by Lee Deforest. The tube or valve was essentially an amplification device for radio, telegraphy, and telephony. All automated computing devices relied on such valves prior to transistors.

After serving in the US Navy as a research engineer during WWI, a scientist and educator named Vannevar Bush invented the differential analyser, a more sophisticated automated...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Intellect Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1841500399
• ISBN 13: 9781841500393
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 190
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland