Culture+and+the+Internet

= Culture and the Internet =

__//**TABLE OF CONTENTS:**//__
//I. Introduction II. First Computers III. The Eniac IV. APRANET and the Beginning of the Internet V. The World Wide Web VI. Law of the Internet VII. The Culture VIII. Conclusion//

In today’s busy world, nothing has become as important or utilized in vastly different fields, as the computer. Medicine, Science, and others have come a long way since the days of old but nearly everything we know has now become a simple chain of 1’s and 0’s able to be downloaded, analyzed, and used in mere seconds. When the first invention of the computer was created, it was unfathomable at the time that they would be so useful, other than a giant calculator and military purposes. However, when the internet was invented it opened even more new and exciting opportunities, brought countries together, and even a culture that has made the computer so vastly used and accessible today.
 * Introduction:**

Being official, the first mechanized computer was invited by a German native Wilhelm Schickard in 1623. Although the first tool used for helping calculate simple math problems was the well known abacus, this computer known as “The Calculating Machine,” or “Calculating clock,” had a more mechanical construct than simply moving sliders by hand. This computer was driven by gears that would do the calculations and show the result. Similarly, Blaise Pascal’s Pascaline, invented in 1624, was also a gear-driven device used to help tax collectors; namely is father. Up until now, however, these calculating machines were only built for a single purpose; if there was another job to do, another computer was built specifically for it. These non-programmable computers were a start but the first real programmable computer, able to do more than one task, was the Z3. This machine was made in 1941 in Germany by Konrad Zuse. This computer was also fully automatic, whereas the previous inventions still needed a human to turn some cranks and start things going. These calculations were performed using the first binary system, binary floating point arithmetic, and used punch film. With war, also springs a use of technology to try and getting ahead of the opposition. Computers were used in WWII to decrypt messages sent by the Germans using The Enigma. This was a machine that encoded letters that were undecipherable by anyone else. Using ears in a typewriter, it scrambled the letters that were typed to encrypt the letters. The Lorenz machine was also used by the Germans during this time period – a similar machine to The Enigma using teleprinter messages. However, these “un-decipherable” messages were able to be understood by the help of Tommy Flowers in Britain; The colossus. The Mark 1 was release in December 1943 but an improved Mark 2 was introduced in June 1944. By comparing two streams of data sent by the Lorenz Machine it was able to compare and crack the code sent out from the Germans.
 * The First Computers:**

Also developed during WWII was an extremely famous computer based off of the ABC, or Atanasoff Berry Computer; the ENIAC. ENIAC, or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer as well as being known as the “Giant Brain”, was created by John Mauchly, Presper Eckert, along with a team of engineers assisting the project from the University of Pennsylvania consisting of Arthur Burks, Chaun Chu, Jack Davis, Iredell Eachus, Harry Huskey, and Bob Shaw each having their own specific jobs. Also an electronic computer, the ENIAC was designed exclusively for the military in America, kept as a secret and only really known among people involved in the tight-knit circle surrounding this new technology. It was also enormous, fitted inside a room that was 30 ft. by 50 ft. This computer was also programmable using wires to plug in different places and different panels to do separate tasks, different from stored memory. The purpose of this machine was to calculate ballistics trajectory tables although it was eventually used to do calculations for the hydrogen bomb. However, it wasn’t really what it accomplished at the time for the military that was extraordinary, but the concepts that it built upon and exceeded well after the war that truly affected society. “Mauchley thought the world would need maybe six computers. No one had any idea the transistor and chip technologies would come along so quickly. It is shocking to have your life work reduced to a tenth of a square inch of silicon,” Is a quote by J. Presper Eckert himself in an interview with Alexander Randall 5th a testament of how something that wasn’t produced to be used by nearly everyone has proven to be a key part of society. The impact of this computer is also significant for women; the first group of programmers was female, when normally this field is considered male-dominated. Despite the success of the ENIAC, little credit is given to the original designers of this wonderful machine because of the controversy of who invented the first true electronic computer. John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry Invented the ABC, and although not programmable, it used vacuum tubes and was the first to implement the idea DRAM, Dynamic Random Access Memory, used in todays computers. This computer’s sole purpose served to solve simultaneous linear equations. However, it did not fully work. Mauchly and Eckert also did not file a patent until June 1947, well after the invention and the boom of competition with the creation of computers. Because of this their business failed miserably and was bought out by the Sperry Corperation who in turn signed a cross-licensing agreement with I.B.M. Although the original inventors tried to dispute this, Sperry won. This did not make the computer more commercially available right away, however. The common person did not own a computer, and those who did operated on few – a distinct difference from an office of today where everyone has a computer. It takes another war of sorts to start the turn of another invention utilizing the true power of the computer; the birth of the APRANET, beginning the age of the Internet, which in prospect is a simple idea of communication.
 * The Eniac:**

ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency) was developed by DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, in the US whose job was to invent technology for use specifically for the military. It was during the cold war that this agency began to develop the first stages of what would soon become the internet. This was a network based around the idea of Packet Switching which is where data is grouped into packets and transmitted over a network, where before circuit switching was used to transmit data, only available on the computer itself. It was first inspired by the ideas of Josph Licklider with his Intergalactic Computer Network. By using his ideas, Robert Taylor turned to MIT. It was then the APRANET was born, connecting MIT, Univerity of California, and Stanford Research Institute, and UC Santa Barbara. On October 29, 1969 when the first message ever sent, from UCLA, between computers was established, was the day the vision of the internet had first been materialized. Then in 1971, the first email was sent, followed by File Transfer using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) in 1973, and Voice Traffic using a Network Voice Protocol (NVP.) The ARPANET did not stop with military and simple communications between Universities; it spread, and far. When an IMP and BBN joined in on the network on the east coast it grew even larger. With this growth, meant there must be standardization. This was implemented by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) called x.25 which defines how connections are established despite the different types of computer systems. This was readily made available to businesses, along with Telenet’s email services.
 * ARPANET and the Beginning of the Internet:**

The concept of world-wide, however, had not been fully conceived as of yet. Each different network was divided into sections and could not communicate with each other. This was only obtainable with the creation of the internetwork protocol by both Robert Kahn and Vinton Cert no longer was the network responsible for reliability and communication, but hosts became responsible for delegating the information highway making it possible to ignore the differences of each network and combine them under one roof. Now the vision of the World Wide Web is underway. Despite being the base around the internet, e-mail was now readily available to everyone on the network. Vannevar Bush, although never seeing the birth of the internet, wrote essays and fueled the fire of the internet with his visions and ideas before its conceiving. His interests in new technology and its use are still studied even today. His idea of the memex, years before the internet published in //The Atlantic Monthly// titled “As We May Think”, was a theoretical machine which was the base idea of what is today known as the modern hypertext, phrase coined by Ted Nelson giving credit to the mastermind behind its invention. With these new ideas, came the birth of the first web browsers. This invention, once implemented by Tim Berners-Lee made a proposal called the WorldWideWeb (W3) Project, accepted by CERN. The hypertext is fully known has HTML, Hypertext Mark-up Language. This document runs to this day on html tags, which dictate the elements of the way the page is displayed. In order to display these documents, a web browser was inevitably invented. The first web browser available to display these documents, which we know today as websites, was known as Gopher which has spawned various other web browsers that are known today.
 * The World Wide Web:**

The philosophy behind the internet, of connecting everyone together, made it more popular to own a computer and thus the users of computers and the internet rose in numbers. Of course with its popularity, came regulations with the law. However, since the internet was now truly the vision of the world wide web, how can you regulate something that has no owner? Kevin Mitnick made an example of laws to regular the use of computers and internet. Single handedly used the computer to hack into systems to give himself free bus rides, steal money, and gaining access to high security computers and systems, and possibly other alleged things on top of what was proven with his knowledge and use of Social Engineering. Because of this, several laws were passed to prevent this type of thing from happening again. This wasn’t necessarily a terrible thing either, as a new job title for checking security holes were created offering more jobs and professions to people in the computer field.
 * Law of the Internet:**

Internet and computer culture is something of a fascinating phenomenon that occurred after the popularity of the computer hit its mark, also known as Cyber Culture, defined as “The culture arising from the use of computer networks, as for communication, entertainment, work, and businesses.” (dictionary.com) The first known culture that seeped from the wires was called cyberpunk. This was a culture surrounded by the concept of hacking, but also a style all of its own. Movies such as //Bladerunner//, //Hackers,// and even Japanese Animation such as //Akira// and //Ghost in the Shell// definitely has a unique style based around the computer age. With this culture, also came stereotypes associated with those who surround themselves with computers and technology. The one spectrum is a skinny nerdy male with glasses and pimples, and on the other end (more associated with the internet culture and video games) is the fat 25 year old who lives at home with his mother. The notion of “no girls on the internet” is also a key phrase, as it is assumed women do not have any interest, or have no brains, when it comes computers. The next wave of internet culture is actually an alteration of language, known as “chatspeak.” AIM, MSN, and other chat relaying devices have spawned a new way of typing such as lol, laugh out loud, brb, be right back, and to not fully type out words such as typing “r u going 2 b on ltr?” These words can often be unreadable to those not associated with it, and often and protrude into professional areas such as essays and emails. This break between spelling and sentence forming of proper use, to the extent it has been used, has never been so prevalent into culture and actual means of communication with everyday people. Also what cannot be forgotten is internet fame and the impact it has had on the most recent modern culture in todays time. Youtube has let people post videos and communicate with strangers in a way that otherwise they would not have gotten out and become famous. The person who danced to the “numa numa” song on youtube was on TV shows, and Tay Zonday who sung “Chocolate Rain” had his own commercial on TV. The concept of “channers” is also a unique phenomenon that sprawls around the idea of a message board where everyone is anonymous, and everyone posts whatever they want and get responses that are sometimes cruel, funny pictures, and even advice. The most prevalent notion of these channers on the news, is their protest against the religion called Scientology where they wear suites and masks to promote their anonymity and community. This community has spawned a huge group of people from around the world to come together, showing that the interests and ideas no matter how bizarre, transcends cultures bringing them together.
 * The Culture:**

Computers went from a simple gear powered re-creation of the abacus to the new stream-lined computer we know of today. The intentions of the computers went from necessity to springing a whole new cultural movement based around the technology of the internet. The impact of computers on culture is more than just a single phenomenon that happened at once place and one time; with the dawn of a global age, everyone is connected, and all was made possible by the internet. Without this the computer might not have ever seen its true use and potential; it’s use by millions of people everyday.
 * Conclusion:**

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