The Invention of Personal Computers and Its Effect on Humanities - Essay Example

? The Invention of Personal Computers and its effect on humanities The Invention of Personal Computers and its effect on humanities Advancements in technology could not be merely considered as trivial and be ignored. Personal computers, cell phones, electronic stoves, indoor plumbing, television, internet and what not! All of these are benevolence of advancements of technology for the human race. Even though life was sustainable on planet earth before we had have all these technologies but some people think otherwise. People believe that they might not have been able to endure life on earth without the assistance of these advancements. This essay talks about the way these scientific technologies especially personal computer have affected the humanity in an optimistic manner. Advancement in science is a good thing as it helps people make their lives simpler and better by every passing day. Homo sapiens living on this planet are yet bored with the life they have been living on this planet Earth for approximately more than 2,000 years. We want technological advancements each day and thus today the governmental firms are also induced to research and development. It is in the nature of human beings to explore all possibilities for the betterment of their own lives and for the society and personal computers have been a great help in making it possible for us. (Knight, 2001) Over the years Information technology has advanced and continued to impact the lives of individuals as well as the societies. It has become the part of everyday life and it seems now that without IT, it would be very difficult to manage the information or secure information and even to communicate information effectively and conveniently. In the future the role of IT would become very much dominant and important in every field. It will continue to influence all areas including business,, science, finance, medical, politics, engineering etc. Let’s discuss in detail the brief history of personal computers. Most of us perceive that the history of personal computers begins with Microsoft or IBM but this isn’t true. In 1975, the very first personal computers came into existence which was named as ‘kits’: the MITS Altair 8800, which was followed by an Altair clone, the IMSAI 8080. Both of these now obsolete personal computers used the Intel 8080 CPU. In the following year Z-80 processor was created by Zilog and 6502 technology was produced by MOS. Paul Allen and Bill Gates were the first to write a BASIC compiler for this Altair and thus formed Microsoft. In 1977, a revolution came in the industry when Apple introduced its Apple II which was a color computer with floppy drive support and expansion slots, 8-bit operating system that gave the MS-DOS template and the very first Computer Shack (Computer Land franchise store) came into existence. As mentioned before, it wasn’t IBM or Microsoft to introduce the first home held personal computer; it was Commodore in 1980 that opened the gates to home computing with VIC-20 for just $299. A rough estimate showed that there were at least one million personal computers in United States in the year 1980 but most of them failed. But the one aspect which brought revolution in the field of computing was in 1981 by IBM when it introduced its IBM PC on Aug 12, 1981. This personal computer is capable of running a 16-bit CPU on 8-bit bus (the Intel 8088), has at least 16 KB of RAM, and included five expansion slots. (Knight, 2001) Technological advancements in personal computers and other basic necessities of life have been affecting humanities since a long time now. According to some sociologists, technological modernization is the prime most important source of the rapid social change. But how does technological advancement causes social change to occur? What are the implications of such change and how is it prevailing in our society? These are the questions we must focus on. We should emphasize on how these technological advancements on the same hand play an important role in our lives and how they shape our culture and civilization. Every society is changing and this persistent change is followed by technological innovations in the field of personal computers. Societies change by either unnoticeably and subtly or abruptly. These social changes affect our norms, values, and roles within a particular community we live in. The Industrial Revolution of Europe which began in 1750 was a genuine revolution or fundamental change for the English society. This Industrial Revolution was largely helped by Windows and IBM with their famous personal easy to handle personal computers. Today’s interface devices comprise of joystick, trackballs, and held styluses for drawing and handwriting. Keyboards and mouse are today long gone technologies replaced by ipads, and touch pads. Today, this technological innovation has reached such heights where engineers and scientists are focusing their attention towards gloves that tells the computer about the accurate movement of your fingers. There are several other devices being recognized around the globe. Experts are also working on head tracking helmets and glasses with electromagnetic, optical, and mechanical gadgets that trails the head and eye movements of a person so that the personal computer know exactly what you want to do and where you are looking for it. Science has also developed complete suits of the body that will be able to recognize the limbs and torso of a person and might be able to assist handicapped people. A phone system which translates language is a speech recognition and understanding technology which somewhat does this: for instance you want to call an associate in South Africa from United States of America so when you are connected with that party, you will talk in English to him or her; the computer translates it into African language and you will hear a computer generated interpretation of whatever you said. This computer generated meaning of your words will be heard by the other party. If the computer was not able to comprehend it, you will hear a wrong paraphrase so you can always abort it and try conveying it in a different wording.( Zukas, 1998) Information technology’s future is very intense and exciting. As we come to the twenty first century, experts have predicted that there will be “natural communication” between the computers and humans. In compliance with computers and people to interact and concentrate, we as individuals must “interface” or talk as effectively, naturally, and efficiently as possible. These interfaces are very vital because this is the area where machinery comes into contact with people in an Information Marketplace. An expert Michael Dertouzos, who is a MIT expert, said that the Information Marketplace cannot reach its zenith until the human machine interaction became as close as human-to-human communication. The capability to speak to one’s own personal computer is a vital and essential part of the interface we will conclude to. This phenomenon will take place due to two reasons; the first reason is that speaking is a natural phenomenon-most of the time we as human beings communicate to each other via speaking and thus it should be implemented in computer-human interactions as well. The second part is that speech is an interface technology which is most available to be used for practical reasons. It is translucent to everyone that making a system that helps computers to comprehend speech will expand drastically in our daily lives. A language recognition system does have far reaching consequences. Take an instance of a navigational-assistance program in the car-it is a great help when you are new to a town or city or you are a tourist; this system would be like your mother directing your way through the town. Another example could be a home computer which directs you across a labyrinth of powerful useful devices in your home. It is easier for these speech recognition systems to do something about the travel agents helping customers to make hotel and car reservations or to book flights. (Ayers, 2012) Thus we can conclude that without the blessings of information technology and invent of personal computers, it hadn’t been possible to go beyond to such scientific advancements such as computers and spaceships. Man would have never travelled to moon or to the international space station if it weren’t for these technologies. These systems are the essence of tomorrow’s integrated world of machinery and computer where computer will seem to dominate men and men will communicate to computers as he does to other human beings. For decades, computers have been weak at understanding usual human speech and talks and many critics have predicted that human machine talk is not possible. But scientists are persistent that they will make it genuine and there will be real conversation between machines and people. (Bardini, 2000). Today computers have become an essential part of everyday life; they have positively amalgamated in our lives for the betterment of human civilization. Teachers use it in the classrooms to teach their students. Kids play games on it, watch movies, and parents also use it for their work. Thus humanities have far more benefited from the advent of personal computers. (Shelly, 2008) ? Bibliography Analyzing the Effect of Scientific Advancement on Humanity Advancements in Scientific Technolog . (2010, June 08). In WriteWork.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.writework.com/essay/analyzing-effect-scientific-advancement-humanity-advancement Knight, Dan (September 9, 2001). Personal Computer History- The First 25 years. Law end PC [ONLINE] Available at: http://lowendmac.com/lowendpchistory/index.shtml Ayers, Sheldon (2012). The Cultural impact of Computer Technology. [ONLINE]. Available at: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1999/7/99.07.07.x.html Zukas, J. A., & Walters, W. P. (1998). Explosive effects and applications. New York: Springer. Bardini, T. (2000). Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, coevolution, and the origins of personal computing. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. Shelly, G. B. (2008). Teachers discovering computers: Integrating technology and digital media in the classroom. Boston, Mass: Thomson/Course Technology. Read More