Inventions and Innovations in Computing Technology While

¶ … Inventions and Innovations in Computing Technology

While the argument can be made that as the backbone of the computer industry, the Jacquard loom and Charles Babbage's computing engine represented the two most important inventions and innovations in computer technology, the past 200 years have witnessed the introduction of numerous inventions and innovations in computing technology that compete for the title. Although singling out the most important is a highly subjective enterprise, a convincing argument can also be made that out of these many inventions and innovations, the two that stand out as being the most significant are the introduction of a user-friendly computer interface in the early 1980s and the World Wide Web in 1991 as described further below.

Prior to the introduction of Windows by Microsoft in the early 1980s, personal computers were limited in their usability. At best, most personal computer users during this period were restricted to an "A:>" prompt that defied their best efforts to use effectively. A few years later, a new prompt was added ("C:>") to personal computers that added additional memory but did little otherwise to clarify things for most users. In fact, according to the editors of Forbes, "By the early 1980s, Bill Gates and his merry band of Silicon Valley nerds had devised the progenitor of Windows, a user-friendly interface that inspired the personal computing revolution" (Most Important Technological Innovations 2012:3).

Once computer users learned how to use their computers to actually do useful things, there was a corresponding demand for more useful things do with them and fortunately, about this time, the Internet and its star child, the World Wide Web (WWW) were introduced. In this regard, the Forbes editors add that, "By 1991, with the birth of the World Wide Web, computer users worldwide were effectively granted digital visas to travel through cyberspace" (Most Important Technological Innovations 3). Likewise, Wood and Smith (2005) emphasize that, "With the growth of the 'wireless web,' liberated from the miles of cable and wires that formed much of the network infrastructure of the last century, one discerns an emerging world in which information resides everywhere one might imagine" (39).

Many authorities agree that the advent of the World Wide Web signaled the true revolution in computing that has fueled its meteoric growth in recent years. For instance, Naish (2011) emphasizes that, "Twenty years ago, Tim Berners-Lee launched the World Wide Web among a small circle of fellow computer enthusiasts" (32). When it was first developed, few observers could predict the ultimate impact that the World Wide Web would have on the entire world, but few other inventions in human history has had such an impact in such a short amount of time. As Naish (2011) points out, when the WWW was introduced, "Computer fans were an obscure minority, their efforts loudly derided by analogue hipsters. Steadily, however, the World Wide Web gained momentum as the limited group of early users - computer scientists and military and government agencies - expanded until it attracted a critical mass in the mid-1990s. Now, according to the analyst Internet World Stats, over 30 per cent of the global population - more than two billion people - have online access" (33).