ENIAC

Cast your mind back to a time when computers were 30 tons in weight and consumed 150 kilowatts of power. Does this seem like reality? But in fact during the events of Word War II, the first ever computer was built by Mauchly and Eckert and was activated 67 years ago, helping and assisting the US army.

The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), was a reprogrammable machine that performed initial calculations for H-Bombs, and it was used to prepare artillery shell trajectory tables and perform other military and scientific calculations.

It contained 19,000 vacuum tubes, 6000 switches and it could add 5,000 numbers in a second. I am sitting here trying to contemplate and comprehend how far we’ve come from a enormous computer that took up the space of an entire room, to a small and powerful box that we are able to hold in the palm of our hands. It was powered in 1946 and deactivated in 1955, now components of this ground breaking computer have been distributed across the world.

So how have computers evolved?

Well in my opinion, that we have come a long way from what we have designed in computer technology. When the ENIAC was created, it started to inspire many computer scientists around the world, that pursued them to create and upgrade the computer.

The ENIAC must have used a lot of electricity, due to it being so big, but nowadays, our computers such as laptops, iPhone’s and Macs, are now more smaller and more powerful.

We have come a long way with computers from a large mechanical brain that took up an entire room, from a device that is small in size, but has a knowledgeable mind.

I wonder what the next the step is to upgrading computers. I am excited to what the future holds.

Alan Turing

Alan Turing was an English mathematician who is known as the father of theoretical computer science by computer wizards and war historians. Later dubbed a war hero, Alan Turing contributed to breaking the German enigma code leading to allied victory against Nazi Germany.

He and his team of code breaking colleagues at Bletchley Park, the central site of the UK’s Government central site and Cypher School (GC&CS) helped crack what was considered to be an unbreakable code for the intercepted German Messages for the Enigma Machine

Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, has described Alan Turing as a War Hero, and he was rewarded an OBE from the Queen.

The link between Alan Turing and Apple

In 1954 Alan Turing had died after allegedly committed suicide from biting into an apple that was laced with cyanide.

According to reports, Alan Turing was frustrated and overwhelmed with chemical castration being pumped into him by the British Government, after he admitted that he was a homosexual. He admitted this, when his home was broken into by a bugler who turned out to be his love interest. During the time when Alan Turing was alive, homosexuality was illegal and seen as being disgusting and unnatural. Therefore anyone caught engaging in homosexual activities, would be arrested and chemically castrated.

It was said that Alan Turing ate the apple that he put cyanide in, recreating the scene of Snow White eating the poisoned apple. However some reports say that the poisoned apple wasn’t intentional as people say that Turing was careless with his experiments, and accidentally inhaled cyanide or the apple fell into a cyanide puddle. But reports say that a half-eaten apple was found on his bedside table.

The company Apple, that is known for creating the Mac, iPhone, iPod, and iPad, may have had inspiration for using the logo of a half eaten apple from Alan Turing, because of his contribution in creating a computer and as the first step up for artificial intelligence. Some people say that the apple logo linking to Alan Turing was a myth, but people still speculate to this day.

No matter what rumor is true or false, it’s likely to say that Alan Turing was a war hero. He didn’t fight on the battlefields, but with his brain and his team he managed to crack the codes from the enemy. Without him, the world would be a different place. Alan Turing has planted the seed of computer science, which people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have expanded his technology into something bigger and better.

My Presentation

This is a presentation I did exploring the topics of what went on in the 2010’s. I read out to the class from the pictures presented on screen to tell everyone from my point of view of 2010’s was like for me.

2010sDownload

From my experience, when I was doing this presentation, I wanted to put many creativity thought into it. I had many ideas for each theme and what they presented (for example the news one has a breaking news bar from bottom to top). I had many knowledge on the 2010’s when growing up in this time period from when I was 11-20 years old.

However, when I was up presenting it, I didn’t have any lines so I had to think from the top of my head. I was nervous when doing it, but in the final outcome everyone loved what I said. Even if I was nervous when doing it.

I think what I could do to improve, when doing something like this again, I would get more time to write the stuff I needed to say, and remember what the words were when looking at the audience.

Social Media Discussion.

A while back I asked a question on my Deviant Art page to my viewers and online friends what their favourite game is. I didn’t get much response, but I got one from one of my supporters and friend TheCollosalD

He put down a lot of what his favourite game was and his reasons why he liked it. This is what he said.

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He seemed to have provided me with a lot of information that I think is very informal and really well researched.

I think asking questions on social media is another helpful way of researching. Simply asking people questions on what they think and what they know can provide you with a lot of information when your finding out facts for a topic your doing in a project for school, college, or even work.

I might use social media again if I’m having trouble looking for information online.

Conducting research on social media, can be incredibly easy and convenient, because a lot of people use social media. You can post what your trying to research on other social media platforms to widen your audience. By doing this you can get a rich and diverse audience, from your research from other people who know about this stuff and who are able to contribute. A wider audience means that, my research comes from a diverse community, therefore you have the perspective of males, females, whites, blacks, different countries, culture and religion. This makes my research more valid as it is more representative.

I am aware that only one person replied to my research, and therefore making my research not representative. To get more responses I would try and post it on other social medias, than just one so I can get more responses and more advertisement.

1980’s Gaming

When the world was in a panic during the conflicts of the Cold War, we all needed something to take our minds off of things that bothered us and what scared us. As computers were being developed and were being used for entertainment than just military work, arcade games became a face of the 80’s. A time that we all remember from our younger years and not worry about of what was going on in the world back then.

ARCADE CABINETS

When video games started to become relevant, arcade cabinets were introduced to many arcade places. They were even placed into restaurants for kids, and pizzeria’s. Arcade cabinets were a computer design to let people enjoy while they were out and about form their homes. Arcade cabinets were the origin generators, of such big games that we all remember.

• In 1980, Pac-Man was introduced to the arcade and it was by far the most addicting game to be ever played. It involved a yellow sprite named Pac-Man where your main goal was to collect and eat all the pellets in a maze, all while being chased by ghosts.
• In 1981, Donkey Kong was introduced to arcade cabinets, where it was the spawn of a certain Italian Plumber we all know and love to this day. It involved the player controlling a man named “Jump Man” and your goal was to reach the top of a construction building to save a damsel in distress from a Ape named “DK” who threatens to push you back with barrels.

THE RISE OF NINTENDO

When gaming became a big thing in the 80’s, a certain Japanese company rose to popularity. Nintendo is no stranger to making the best selling video games of all time. Nintendo created new computer technology for people to enjoy gaming in a whole new way. Nintendo began making games to play on the Atari, made by another company. It introduced the best selling games and even the one we know of today “Super Mario Bros” in 1983. It introduced to us “Jump Man” who is now named Mario and his brother Luigi, who had a new task to save a princess names “Toadstool” from a Dragon-Turtle named “King Koopa”. This idea of it became so big that it began to spawn sequel after sequel, and the franchise has become a phenomenal success. Nintendo also created new technology like the GameBoy, the first of the hand held devices to play games on. Nintendo became to upgrade the technology for new ways to enjoy playing video games, like the GameCube, Wii, DS, 3DS, Wii U, and of course the most popular one The Nintendo Switch. Nintendo is a company that never fails to bring enjoyable games and lovable and recognisable characters.

The Crash of 1983

During the years of video games, there happened to a crash. The crash was attributed to several factors, including the market situation in the number game consoles and available games, and waning interest in console games in favour of personal computers. Revenues peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then it began to fall to around $100 billion by 1984 (almost 97%).

My opinion

I have to say that I love 1980’s games, just old games from then we’re really classic. Generally I love all games that are made in our modern day and age, but something about video games from them is almost a nostalgia trip. It can show you of how far video game company’s like Nintendo have come. Video games will always tend to inspire us, we won’t forget the day and age when they originated and began to thrive.

Culture of the 1970’s

During the end of the 1960’s, a new age began in the 10 years of the 1970’s.

TECHNOLOGY:

In the years of the 70’s technology for computers began to be given a upgrade, and arcade cabinets were created. These offered for entertainment for the younger youths of all ages. The first commercially successful game was PONG, which worked like table tennis, except it was done digitally. This then spawned the rise of different types of video games even some for the newly developed Atari, such as Maze War, Breakout and my all time favourite Space Invaders. This showed people further that computers were not just for work or military defence, they were used for entertainment and games, for the younger generation.

FASHION:

The 70’s was also a spawn of new types of clothing and fashion. In the early 60’s and late 70’s, there was the rise of the culture for Hippies, which were a group of people that were chilled and wanted nothing more, but to share peace and love. Hippies wore ragged clothing with different vibrants of colours. There was also the ruse of the group of Punks, which were people who wore sort of black clothing and eyeliner on them, and even had their hair all coloured and spiky. This might have spawned when music was being updated and people started to dress in clothes to represent their type of music.

MUSIC:

As things started to develop, music was no stranger to the ages of the 1970’s. The rise of the days of music became a common thing all across the world in that period. Great bands began to rise such as the Jackson 5, Queen and Pink Floyd started to spread, and a lot of people liked this new type of music. It offered a new way of how music can be created and developed and it never changed until the 1990’s.

The 1970’s was a period of offering many different cultures. It was a time that revolutionised the years for younger people, despite when the world was afraid when the Cold War was happening, different types of genre was offered to make people forget and to just enjoy life to the fullest, and it was time to offer peace and joy to all nations.

3 of my favourite 1960’s movies

• The Sound of Music: 1965/ This film has to be the greatest musical film of all time. To me its well recongnisable and the music and songs in it are unforgettable. It tells a unique story about family and its just a well done film. The Sound of Music is a film that you can sit and watch with your children and just enjoy together as a family.

• Planet of the Apes: 1968/ I find it kind of sad that people think of the modern day versions of this film and miss of where it came from. This film can combine of humanity’s flaws that cam lead to their downfalls and the idea of apes rising up against us. It tells of a apocolyptic future of Apes controling the Earth and Humans are now the ones being hunted. Planet of the apes can tell us of what we must be careful of and not take things on Earth as advantage.

• Mary Poppins: 1964/ This is one of Walt Disney’s classics. This is back when Disney was a rising company and become more popular than any other. The movie Mary Poppins is a story set in the 1910’s, where it involves two children who get a new nanny named Mary Poppins and she’s apparently magical. This film is one of a childhood classics and it is really memorable with it’s songs, characters, and scenes. It is combines animation with live-action which is really impressive coming from the time it was made and presented.

These are my 3 favourite films of the 1960’s, and they are a grand classic of the 1960’s and films in that time period told unique stories and they entertained many audiences, even to this day.