From the written word to the Computer

Before the dawn of this new modern Computer age most people relied on the written word to keep in touch with family and friends.  Writing desks with traditional quill ink pens were first used along with blotting paper to carefully dab on to liquid ink applied to generously.  Letters, birthday cards, post cards, party invitations were all sent through the post and hand written.

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The original computer models were made out of a need to solve serious number crunching problems and not for entertainment. By 1880 the population in America had grown so large that it took a staggering seven years to correctly record Census results!  The American government looked for faster ways to tabulate such data and that gave rise to the first punch-card computers. Just like a computer a PDF to Excel  file can evolve and will allow the operator to modify the results.  By the 1980’s Microsoft were able to announce “Windows” as a response to Apple’s “GUI” and Commodores “Amiga”.

These days modern electronic and digital computers can do pretty much anything that can be programmed into them!  The internal machinery parts of the computer like the wires, circuits and transistors are called the hardware.  The data and instructions are called the software and the computer memory stores programmes and data that needs to be kept.

Most modern households own at least one computer and the youth of today rely on their electronic devises to help them communicate and carry out their day to day lives.