Impact of Computers on Society

1. Impact of Computers on Society 8. Computers and Work

2. The Future… • … has a way of arriving unannounced

3. Once upon a time… • … everything was new • Fire • Stone tools • Fabric • Metal tools – copper, brass, bronze, iron • Moveable type • Steel • Each had an effect

4. Making Cloth • All done by hand for centuries • Card the fibers • Spin the fibers into thread • Drop spindle • Spinning wheel • Weave the thread into cloth • Silas Marner • Bottom the Weaver

5. Industrial Revolution 1750 - 1890 • Three key inventions • Cotton Gin • Spinning Jenny, or spinning frame • Water and machine powered looms

6. Cotton Gin – Eli Whitney (1794) • Mechanized the process of carding cotton • (picture from Smithsonian Institution)

7. James Hargreaves – Spinning Jenny (1764) • Multi-spindle spinning wheel • Soon made obsolete by the “spinning frame” • Richard Arkwright (1768) • Made stronger thread

8. Edmund Cartwright (1895) • Water-powered loom • (patent drawing for Cartwright’s loom)

9. Two “Enabling” Inventions • Steam engine – Thomas Newcomen (1712) • Used to pump water out of coal mines • Improved by James Watt (1769) • Much more efficient • Watt engine diagram from Wikipedia

10. Another “Enabling” Invention • Jacquard loom (1801) • Used punched cards to control weaving complex patterns

11. The Luddites • “Ned Ludd” was anonymous (and probably did not really exist) • Destruction of wool and cotton mills, beginning in Nottingham in 1810 • Virtually a paramilitary group that even clashed with the British army • Sabotage was made a capital crime • See “Luddite” in Wikipedia

12. Difference Engine • Charles Babbage (1823 – 1834) • Mechanical • Hand-cranked • Never completed • Analytical Engine – included printout • Problem was that mass-produced parts were not readily available

13. Analytical Engine The designs for the Analytical Engine include almost all the essential logical features of a modern electronic digital computer. The engine was programmable using punched cards. It had a ‘store’ where numbers and intermediate results could be held and a separate ‘mill’ where the arithmetic processing was performed. The separation of the ‘store’ (memory) and ‘mill’ (central processor) is a fundamental feature of the internal organisation of modern computers. The Analytical Engine could have `looped’ (repeat the same sequence of operations a predetermined number of times) and was capable of conditional branching (IF… THEN… statements) i.e. automatically take alternative courses of action depending on the result of a calculation. • http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/online/babbage/

14. Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace • The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the poet. • Described how to program the Difference Engine (1842-1843) • Died in 1852 at the age of 36

15. Herman Hollerith • Used a punch-card system borrowed from railroad to help analyze 1890 US Census • Developed eventually into an 80-column punch card system (1928) • 80 columns later applied to typewriters (pica type) • 80 columns also used for computer displays • Electric tabulating machine (1889)

16. Industrial Revolution Causes Problems • Traditional jobs were disappearing • Old skills no longer needed • New jobs required more sophisticated skills • Machines were expensive • No longer a family business because of cost • Does any of this sound familiar?