Lesson 1: Computer History

The personal computer represents the result of several decades' worth of hardware and software mutations. Today's computer is, in many respects, a complicated machine, with many technological layers that separate us from its fundamental operations.

But you, too, are a pretty complicated creature after several decades of development! When others look at pictures and hear stories about you when you were young, they get an interesting glimpse into your personality, based upon earlier, simpler stages in your development.

Similarly, the modern electronic computer was not always such a complicated and mysterious machine. And looking at pictures of the computer when it was in its infancy and hearing stories about how it "grew up" is a great way to learn about the computer's fundamental nature, before it reached its complicated and confusing "adulthood."