HIST212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Ferranti-Packard, Social Forces, Safety Bicycle
18 Apr 2018
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Document Summary
The rst half of the book/course was on a history of the invention of computers. Many people and organizations all came together to make the invention possible. The text is focused primarily on north america, and relatively technical; not much commentary on the social side. We looked at 3 big ideas: signi cance, evidence (traces, sources), change and continuity (history should be understood as change within continuity; di erent times lead to di erent perspectives). The second half will be looking at the new uses of computers. We see new disciplines, occupations forming (computer science, programming, etc. ), new users (computers no longer restricted to small group of people). The computer started being used as a communication device, a games device; it became a multi-purpose device. ), history and ethics (values we can analyze the past in light of the situation they were in at the time, and also in light of what we know now).
