Lecture 2 - The history of computer and internet

Today's lecture was about the history of computer and internet. The computer was firstly invented by Charles Babbage in 1791, it was designed to calculate and print mathematical tables, not like today's. As our convenor Adam mentioned in the lecture, the first home computer was invented in 1975, it was the first one that actually developed, because actually the first PC came out in 1940s. In 1960s-1970s, people have to build computer by themselves after they bought it.

The internet is about 40 years old till now. In 1966, three people (the father of internet) get three computers connected together and made it work.

Bill Gates wanted to create a language that could be used for simple application, such as word processing, basic accounting and some games, so he started writing a language called BASIC for the Altair. After he created the lamguage, he marketed his program by running a little company called Microsoft - which is now known to almost everyone around the world.

There are some early internet applications that were instrumental in defining the nature and use of the internet. The email was invented in 1971, the begining of TCPIP was began from 1974, in 1979, the usenet (online forum comes from usenet) was come out and the most commonly used emotion [:-)] nowadays in chatting online was invented in 1982.

Lastly, it is important to understand that the internet is not the same thing as the web, web is just one part of the internet, there are many other things included in internet, like MSN, online forum and so on.