Essay on individuals who have contributed significantly to the development of computing as we know it essays

Essay on individuals who have contributed significantly to the development of computing as we know it essays Essay on individuals who have contributed significantly to the development of computing as we know it Computing, as we know it has developed greatly and rapidly in the last fifty years or so. Many individuals can be said to have contributed to the computer revolution this century, some more than significantly than others. This is assignment will concentrate on a few of these individuals and describe their pioneering achievements along with the circumstances and situations in which they materialised. The person who arguably made the most important contribution to the development of computing was an army radar technician named Douglas Engelbart. Back in 1945, he read Vannevar Bush's article As We May Think, and he had a vision! His vision was that computer-based tools could augment human intellect, thus improving our overall ability to tackle the problems and goals of the individual, and of society. During the 1950's and 60's Douglas Engelbart went on to develop the mouse, many of the features that are found in all GUI's, integrated help systems, electronic mail, teleconferencing, and interactive Hypermedia. In 1963, he set out the conceptual framework for an interactive hypermedia system in a paper entitled, A Conceptual Framework for the Augmentation of Man's Intellect. In 1968, he had completed the NLS (oN Line System), which was the early realisation of Engelbart's concept of an Augmentation System. NLS pioneered many of the features that are now integral to modern online multimedia systems; mouse, windows, e-mail, word processing, and hypertext. To Engelbart, hypertext was quite important to his Augmentation System. That it would allow users to expand the information available to them, facilitate collaborative authoring, and become a critical focus for community, all key elements of the WEB, which is a vital part of modern day computing. An assignment such as this must include some content concerning Bill ...