The Computer
Revolution
If I were to make a history book of
the years from 1981 to 1996, I would
put computers on
the cover. Computers, you may ask?, Yes computers, because if there
were suddenly no
computers on the world, there would be total chaos. People could not;
communicate,
commute, make business transactions, purchase things, or do most things in
their daily
routine, because power plants use computers to control the production of
electricity.
Computers have evolved extreme rapidly
in the past fifteen years. Ten
years ago, all
that you could do with a computer, was primarily make mathematical
calculations and
type documents, but doing that required typing in a series of complex
codes that took a
great deal of training to learn. Then
the Apple computer company took
this complex
computer language and evolved it to a simpler system of computer language
using words that
made sense in their context. This system
was called BASIC. BASIC
was a major
development in the computer industry, because it made computers accessible
to the average
American. This helped greatly in proving
that computers were no longer
just toys and
they had a very useful purpose. Most
people still felt the cost was too great
for a glorified
typewriter.
Several years after they
introduction of the BASIC system, Apple
introduced a new
line of computers called the Macintosh.
These Macintosh computers
were extreme easy
to use, and were about the same price of a computer that used BASIC.
Apple's business
exploded with the Mac, Macintosh were put in schools and millions of
homes proving
that the computer was an extreme useful tool after all. The Macintosh
made such an
impact on the computer industry that IBM and Microsoft joined forces to
produce the
MS-DOS system. The MS-DOS system was the
basis of the Windows
program, which
made Bill Gates the multi-billionaire that he is. With windows and the
Apple system, the
modem which had been around for several years, could be used for its
full potential. Instead of linking one computer to another,
now millions of computers
could be linked
with massive main frames from on-line services such as; American
On-Line or
Prodigy. People finally had full
affordable access to the World-Wide-Web and
could communicate
with people across the street or across the world. The internet is used
by millions of
people across the world each day for a vast variety of reasons from getting
help with
homework, to reading a magazine, to getting business information such as stock
quotes, to
planning a trip and making reservations, to send and receive e-mail, or even
listen to music
or watch a video clip.
Businesses would come to a grinding
halt if their computers suddenly
stopped. Business men would not be able to communicate
with one another, because they
could not use
phones, pagers, cellular phones, fax machines, or e-mail. People could not
write documents
because many offices do not even have a typewriter. Business is not the
only aspect of
our lives that is effect by computers, we could not by things at the store,
use most
appliances in our homes, drive our cars, or even get electricity, because the
power commands
use computers to control the flow electricity.
In the future, computers will play
an even more important role in our lives.
Computers will
link the citizens of this country with the government, some day making it
possible for the
citizens to directly vote on each bill that is up for vote. This will make
America the first
true democracy since the Greeks.
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