The Internet and Mass Media

The Internet and Mass Media

  • Submitted By: jrsw123
  • Date Submitted: 01/15/2009 9:25 PM
  • Category: Technology
  • Words: 1384
  • Page: 6
  • Views: 2403

Internet and Mass Media
It all started with the development of what has been running our everyday lives even without us knowing it –computers. According to Griffiths (2002), the beginning of modern computers started on 1844 when Samuel Morse invented a communicating device which utilized electronic impulses, a key – a literal key – and a “special” code which turns pulses into the letters of the alphabet. Then there was also Charles Babbage who planned to build a machine called a “Difference Engine”; however, due to the errors that he committed in his calculations, Babbage was not able to build the said machine (Griffiths). The honor that should have been bestowed to Babbage was given to Herman Hollerith who created “digital processing machines” to give a hand to the 1890 US Census compilation. He founded the Calculating-Tabulating-Recording (C-T-C) company – now International Business Machines (IBM) – in 1914 (Griffiths).

Still, the accelerated development of computers occurred during the outbreak of the World War II when from the “Differential Analyzer” of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the 1930s, the “Harvard Mark I” was built by IBM in 1944 and the “Colossus” was constructed by Bletchley of the same year in order to crack the codes of the Germans and Japanese. It was during the World War II that the developers thought of producing devices with an internal stored memory (Griffiths). In June 1948, the first modern computer was operated – the “Baby” created by the Manchester University which was followed by “Manchester Mark I.” Then three years after, the MIT constructed the “Whirlwind” which finally incorporated the Random Access Memory or RAM (Griffiths). The innovation and the developments continued on, the market expanded with the IBM dominating after entering in 1953. The computers were growing smaller, faster and more user-friendly; then there was the use of transistors, integrated circuits and, finally, of...

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