Gadgets

The original computers were human beings who ‘computed’ for mathematicians. Mechanical devices were constructed by ancient Greek and Medieval European engineers for the purposes of measuring time and planetary movements. Charles Babbage ( 1791 - 1871 ) designed and partially constructed the difference engine, the first mathematical calculating machine, and another Briton, Alan Turing progressed the development of computer science. Eventually cogs and wheels were replaced by valves, then transistors and microchips. As computing power increased the machines shrank from room sized in the 1960s to the desktop and hand held devices of today.

The Internet was first developed by the US military, as a robust communications network, begun in 1969 and called ARPANet. During the 1970s, as Universities became connected to the Internet and with the introduction of Email, the Internet evolved into a research tool used by scientists and engineers. The number of connections grew rapidly during the 1980s and the creation of TCP/IP resulted in the creation of newsgroups, where people could post and read messages. Whilst working at CERN in Switzerland, the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, invented the World Wide Web, as a means of publishing and accessing information over the Internet. Subsequently the Mosaic Web browser was launched in 1993 and the the HTML markup language was introduced, enabling the creation of hypertext links between pages. Throughout the 1990s progress was rapid with the development of browsers such as Netscape and Internet Explorer, Search Engines such as Yahoo and Google and Websites such as Amazon and eBay. With the increasing speed of the Internet and power of computers, there has been a rapid global growth of online working, social networks, online gaming and the downloading of audio and video. The spread of wireless technology has enabled laptops and mobile phones to connect to the Internet and send Emails.