Phase 1 : Birth in the 1940s
Several centuries after Pascal's calculating machine,
towards the end of the Second World War, the first relay
calculator was invented as part of an experiment at Harvard
by International Business Machines. The ancestor of the
computer followed : the first electronic calculator, the
ENIAC in 1946 at the University of Pennsylvania (18,000
lamps, 200,000 km of wires). The invention of transistors
allowed the miniaturisation of the machines, and there
were already dreams of future uses for them, although
strictly reserved for scientists.
Phase 2 : First applications for the general public
(1960s)
It wasn't until fifteen years later that the calculation
centres were equipped with computers, and a few big businesses
started to use them in a professional context and the
first video game was invented (by Willy Higginbotham in
1958). The first networks of computers were tested, first
on a local level, then towards the end of the 1960s ARPAnet,
a military network, was created, which later turned into
Internet. While the network was expanding, the first personal
computer was invented by André Thi Truong. The
computer industry took off, with success stories like
Apple, Atari, Commodore and Apple, which developed alongside
older companies like IBM. Homes began to be equipped,
and the arts reflected the emergence of the cyber-culture
and its associated anxieties (2001, A Space Odyssey, with
Hal 9000, the crazy computer).
Phase 3 : Appropriation by the next generation (1980-90)
The computer became an object of mss consumption which
is found at all levels of society, and professional use
develops : word processing, spread sheets, accountancy,
simulation, production, expert systems, network communication,
whilst private use multiplies : leisure, communication,
creation, personal expression, education. The productivity
gains are still minor, and we have to wait another generation
before the tool is perfectly mastered.
Phase 4 : Transformation of society (2000-2010)
Computer technology is part of everyone's life (automated
buying, mobile computers in cars, automated homes) and
society is equally reorganised in the professional sphere
(tele-working, international working groups, small working
teams, the emptying of big cities) as in the private domain
: interactive educational programmes are just as attractive
as video games, the first mistake. This is the first generation
which has always known computer technology : multimedia
artists are respected by society, organised crime develops
in a privileged way by network, nobody can live without
a computer (one wonders why) which has almost become a
background item.
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