1.2.6 Personal Computers & the Internet

Personal Computers & the Internet: How They Changed Our World

Imagine a time when computers were huge machines that took up entire rooms and were only used by governments or big companies! That's how it used to be. But then, some amazing things happened that changed everything, bringing computers into our homes and connecting us all through the internet.

Personal Computers Come to Life

For a long time, computers were special and expensive, designed mostly for complex calculations. But in the 1970s, scientists and engineers figured out how to make tiny electronic brains called "silicon chips." These chips were small enough to hold all the basic parts a computer needs, like its main processing unit and memory.

This breakthrough led to the invention of personal computers in the 1980s, with famous companies like IBM and Apple (with their Macintosh computers) leading the way. These new computers were much smaller, more affordable, and designed for individuals to use at home or in small businesses. Suddenly, regular people could have a computer on their desk! Things like the "mouse," invented by Douglas Engelbart, made them even easier to use. By the 1990s, personal computers became common in many homes.

The Birth of the Internet

At the same time personal computers were becoming popular, another big change was happening: the internet. Before the internet as we know it, there was something called ARPANET, created in the 1960s and 70s. It was a network of computers that allowed researchers to share information and communicate. Think of it like a very early version of social media, but only for scientists! ARPANET was important because it taught people how to link computers together and share information.

The internet we use today really took off thanks to a brilliant scientist named Tim Berners-Lee. In the late 1980s, he came up with the idea of the World Wide Web. His idea was to combine the way computers could connect (like ARPANET) with something called "hypertext." Hypertext allows you to click on words or pictures and jump to other pages, just like you do when you browse websites.

Tim Berners-Lee also created important rules, or "protocols," like HTTP (which helps your computer talk to websites) and HTML (which is like the language used to build web pages). These rules made it possible for anyone to create and share information online, and for all computers to understand each other.

Connected World

So, personal computers gave people their own computing power, and the internet connected those computers, creating a giant network where information could be shared instantly around the world. These two inventions together completely changed how we learn, work, communicate, and have fun!

Bibliography

• History of the Internet from Owen Roberts' Comm Lab.