Computers

The use of computers in society provides obvious benefits and some drawbacks.

`Virtual Reality', a new method of interacting with any computer, is presented

and its advantages and disadvantages are considered. The human aspect of

computing and computers as a form of escapism are developed, with especial

reference to possible future technological developments. The consequences of a

weakening of the sense of reality based upon the physical world are also

considered. Finally, some ways to reduce the unpleasant aspects of this

potential dislocation are examined. A glossary of computing terms is also

included.

Computers as Machines

The progression of the machine into all aspects of human life has continued

unabated since the medieval watchmakers of Europe and the Renaissance study of

science that followed Clocks . Whilst this change has been exceedingly rapid

from a historical perspective, it can nevertheless be divided into distinct

periods, though rather arbitrarily, by some criteria such as how people

travelled or how information was transferred over long distances. However these

periods are defined, their lengths have become increasingly shorter, with each

new technological breakthrough now taking less than ten years to become accepted

(recent examples include facsimile machines, video recorders and microwave

ovens).

One of the most recent, and hence most rapidly absorbed periods, has been that

of the computer. The Age of Computing began with Charles Babbage in the late

19th century Babbage , grew in the calculating machines between the wars

EarlyIBM , continued during the cryptanalysis efforts of World War II

Turing,Bletchley and finally blossomed in the late 1970's with mass market

applications in the developed countries (e.g. JapanSord ). Computers have

gone through several `generations' of development in the last fifty years and

their rate of change fits neatly to exponential curves Graphs , suggesting that

the length of each generation will become shorter and shorter, decreasing until

some unforeseen limit is reached. This pattern agrees with the more general

decrease of length between other technological periods.

The great strength of computers whether viewed as complex machines, or more

abstractly as merely another type of tool, lies in their enormous flexibility.

This flexibility is designed into a computer from the moment of its conception

and accounts for