The Glacial Pace of Technology

The Glacial Pace of Technology

Taylor Jensen writes about Verizon at http://www.deals.servicebundles.com, is considered an expert in the field of high speed Internet, fiber optics, phone service, and has published hundreds of articles informing consumers about what to look for when considering these services in your home.

When most folks hear the word ‘technology’ they typically think of high-speed inventions and modern data flying through cyberspace at the speed of light. Mention DSL and broadband to the majority of people over the age of 70 and they’re daunted by the mere thought of all the new-fangled machinery on which we’ve become so dependent.

However; all these inventions are really not all that modern. Long before anyone ever thought of Al Gore inventing the internet (he really didn’t, for those of you who are wondering), the meticulous means for efficiently storing and cataloging data was well under way.

A gentleman by the name of Semen Korsakov was born, not in California’s Silicon Valley, nor on the trendy northwestern coast, but rather in Kherson, Ukraine. How long ago, you ask? Korsakov was born in 1787. The son of a military engineer, he was a member of the Russian Army and later went on to serve in the statistics department of the Russian Police Ministry. He is one of the first people credited with the idea of using machinery to mimic and enhance natural intelligence.

He created an assortment of rudimentary machines which he described as being for “the comparison of ideas.” Their general function was to assist in a search for information, stored in the form of either punched cards or perforated wooden boards. Korsakov made his system public in 1832 without seeking any form of patent or copyright. Apparently devoid of the capitalist gene, he made the machines available for public use.

Shortly thereafter, England’s Charles Babbage set to work on his own version of an “analytical machine” which also took its instructions from punched cards, much as Korsakov’s devices had. Babbage’s analytical aid would calculate data with the aid of a memory bank, finally printing a solution for the end user. Despite Babbage’s best capitalist efforts, it turned out that the complex engineering required to actually replicate his machinery on a commercial level was not realistic (if even possible) in the mid-late 1800’s.

In 1889, enterprising American citizen Herman Hollerith (New York) created a device that also made use of punched cards to store census information. Hollerith opened his Tabulated Machine Company and manufactured the equipment. It later became part of IBM(International Business Machine). The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer was the first electronic computer; built in 1946, for the US Army ordnance.

Its practical application for standard consumer use was not particularly feasible, considering its substantial weight (approximately 30 tons). The invention of the transistor lead soon after to the creation of the smaller, contemporary electronic computers we’re familiar with today (Remington Rand in the U.S. and British manufacturer Ferranti were the first to produce them, both in 1951).

There really is not much that’s new about the technology we rely upon in modern times. Our high-tech inventions and high-speed access to data have been a long time in the making.

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