U.S. Technology: History

Lesson 8: Communication Technologies

Computers and Conclusion

I want to end this course by discussing computers. We think about the computer as the ultimate in technology. It is at the heart of almost all of our modern day technology. Advances in computers have come at a rate that is nothing short of dizzying. There are times it seems you do not even get a computer home and running before there's a new version.

The computers we use now started with the beginnings of the ENIAC. This stood for the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, a machine commissioned to help the war effort during World War II. By 1945 it was able to do simple calculations. ENIAC contained over 17,000 vacuum tubes and weighed 30 tons. It cost $450,000 and filled a room the size of a handball court.

ENIAC did work, though, and could calculate incredibly fast. It could multiply 333 ten digit numbers a second, as well as finish a trajectory equation in twenty minutes; an equation which had before taken hours to complete.

From this computer to the amazing computers that we have now, it has only been 58 years. Yet here I sit writing this course on a small laptop that can do so much more than the people involved in ENIAC ever dreamed. Today we can not even imagine what a computer that takes up a room looks like. I would like for you to read pages 294-299 of Cowan’s text to get an idea of what the history of computers is all about.

The computer is the perfect metaphor for the history of technology. It is about someone coming up with an idea and continuing to improve on it until they get it to do what they want it to; this has happened since the dawn of time and keeps us wondering what amazing technologies we will find in the future. Technology impacts our lives in so many ways - it is a huge word encompassing so much of what we take for granted every day. Pick up something nearby…anything…a pen, a pencil, a bottle of nail polish; that my friend is technology!

I challenge you to look at everything in your life differently, to find something that you never looked at as technology before and find out the history behind, who invented it, why they invented it! It is a different and exciting way to look at history. Try it…you will like it!

I also thank you for taking this course and I hope that you have enjoyed it and have learned a lot from it! Thank you!!It is technology that has inspired us to improve life in every way. I hope that you have learned this and appreciate it. Thanks again.

Bibliography

Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. "A Social History of American Technology". Pages 273-299. Oxford University Press (1997)