User:Pat Palmer/My Sandbox
This is where I work on drafts.
Suggestions for rewrite of Computer:
NOTE: The goals of this article should be to introduce the meaning of "computer" briefly, and then discuss it's evolution over time and it's significance to the world as it evolved. It should be possible somehow to summarize the concept of a 'computer' today without listing every single blasted concept in every possible field of software and hardware.
For centuries, people sought assistance from mechanical devices in performing onerous arithmetical calculations (ref. abacus and knotted string--Amer. Indians?, and of course the slide rule).
The invention of computers--electronic machines that can perform numerical manipulations far faster than humans--revolutionized the world in the later half of the the twentieth century.
The first generation of computers (1940's and 1950's) were in fact used primarily for performing complex mathematical calculations such as actuary tables or weapons firing trajectories. As the complexity of computer hardware increased, an even more drastic revolution occurred in the programs which the hardware was able to execute.
The classical, most stripped-down view of a computer has the following four basic parts:
processor (and bus)
memory
input (punched cards? keyboard? mouse? microphone?)
output (printout, monitor, sound, industrial automation of mechanical robots)
Although today's computer are used as a tool in almost every profession, in the early years after their inventions, computers were the domain of scientists, mathematicians and engineers. (And I can't resist saying that now they are the domain of teenagers and every Dick, Tom and Harry).
VERY BRIEFLY introduce the notion of a programmable computer, or a stored-program computer, and the Church-Turing ideas. Outline the growth of a new academic discipline, computer science, starting around 1980's, and the parallel growth of world-wide computer networks. Mostly this part should just point off to other articles (that's where the jargon can live).
The history of computer unfolds like a fascinating drama--first, the idea (Babbage et al.). The invention of electricity. Radio and vacuum tubes. The realization that vaccuum tubes could be used as on-off switches to replace mechanical relays. The almost accidental invention of the transitor (first one had a paper clip in it). Turing, Shannon, and number and information theory.
The invention of the compiler. Then the evolution of operating systems, from batch to command line to windows. Apple-Microsoft software wars paralleling Sun-Intel wars in hardware.
The internet and the world wide web, and astonishingly, Google. Last but not least, the importance of hardware miniaturization, radio technology, cheap memory, and all the tiny computer chips and software embedded in our everyday gadgets; these are invisible to most people and tend to get overlooked.
This should be the outline of the article. It should be kept as short as possible, just introduce these different areas to explore, and then point off to more specialized topics.