Manipulating_Data

Computers have been with us since the 1930s in various forms. They have been developed and transformed from taking up entire rooms to desk top, to being portable. There is no one person responsible for inventing the computer. It has taken many people and decades of hard work and research to turn the computer into what it is today. The first computers were no more than calculators designed to help engineers work out complex problems. According to Bellis, 2007, Konrad Zuse invented the first freely programmable computer when in created his automatic calculator. It wasn’t until 1942 that Hewlitt Packard became a company, that we all know so well now, when they created the 200A Audio Oscillator, which Walt Disney, ordered eight of to help with the sound effects for his 1940 movie Fantasia (,2006). There is a landmark case, which began in 1940s and wasn’t resolved until 1973. The case was that of John Mauchly, co-designer of ENIAC and Atanasoff, Berry Computer (ABC). Where it was proven that Mauchly had been to see the ABC computer after it was first operational. The result was that Atanasoff was the originator of several basic computer ideas. At the same time it dis-invented the computer, by saying that it was unpatentable and thus freely open to all (2006). Your average computer system is made up of four components, the input, output, processing and storage. Each has a unique job to do in order for your computer to work. There are very few parts of a computer that have changed over the years. We have learnt to compact them into smaller containers, and at the same time made them more powerful. Designers of processors, people like Intel, and the software designers are working all the time to speed up the abilities of the computer. No sooner does someone buy the newest computer then six months later it is practically obsolete. There is apparently no end to how powerful a computer can become. In the worst case, like a 1940s B Movie, computers will run the world; although the problem with this is that a computer is only as good as the person who programs it. Artificial Intelligence is not about replacing people with computers, it is about using machines to solve problems by observing other people or just by observing our own methods. Artificial Intelligence is about solving the problems presented to our intelligence (McCarthy, 2010). Artificial Intelligence, is not designed to take over the world, as those B movies would have us believe but to bring us greater understanding of our own intelligence. Computers, are more than the space they take up on our desks or in our office buildings, they do more than those early pioneers imagined that they could do. Computers are now small enough to fit into your hand and do more than calculations. We take them for granted at every turn. They are an indispensible part of our lives, and becoming more so every time we watch the news. . Reference Bellis, M. (2007). About.com, Inventors. Retrieved from http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050298.htm (2006). Computer History.org. Retrieved from http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/'category=cmptr McCarthy, J. (2010). What Is Artificial Intelligence. Stanford University. Retrieved from http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/whatisai/whatisai.html