Lesson
1: The Big Picture or Why the World Wide
Web Waited until the 1990s
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STEP ONE |
As hard as it is to believe, the computer age began a scant 50 years ago with the creation of ENIAC, a building size behemoth loaded with vacuum tubes and switches. The first programmable computer appeared in 1951. Transistors soon replaced vacuum tubes and by 1960 the size of a mainframe computer was reduced from 30 tons to one ton. International Business Machines became a giant of American industry.
Through the 1950s and 1960s computers became increasingly visible in the areas of telephone communication, banking and space exploration. Yet few individuals thought of having a computer in the home. All computer innovations that follow, including the World Wide Web, trace back to invention of the first electronic computer.
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