pc.www.infoSuperhighway By Valmiki Faleiro
August marks the anniversary of two earth-shaking events: an 'Atomic' end of World War Two (WW-II, 1945) and curtains up on the Personal Computer (PC, 1981.) WW-II was horrible, let's talk about the PC. A quarter of a century is but a speck in the history of humankind. What is twenty-five years before the millennia? But specks can shine brighter than the millennia combined. As did the last 25 years. They will forever change the way we live, work, and perhaps, even think! The PC, followed by the World Wide Web (www) a decade later, will rank with humankind's greatest inventions -- the 'wheel' and the steam engine, symbol of the 'industrial revolution.' Like how the latter radically changed lifestyles, the PC and www will. It's already begun. We hardly write or receive personal letters via snail mail. I was a student of accounting in the mid-1970s. Doubled as a freelancer, writing for Goa's then only English daily, and had occasion to visit the fertilizer giant, Zuari. A Chartered Accountant acquaintance was in Zuari's Internal Audit department. He showed me the 'computer room.' The huge accounting machines were overwhelming. While we struggled crunching numbers with journal and ledger entries from the 'Batliboi' text, here were machines doing voluminous data of one of India's largest fertilizer makers, and how! The machines punched holes in strange alphanumeric patterns into stiff paper cards. That was all. That was accounting. Zuari's Batliboi! Those impressive IBM punch card computers turned bullock carts five years later, when IBM unveiled a sleek, micro machine: the desktop PC. The IBM 5150 came with 16K of memory (yes, kilobytes, not today's gigabytes) and ran at 4.77 MHz (not today's gigahertz.) I enrolled at Don Bosco-Fatorda to learn Don Estridge's baby, but didn't last beyond the third lesson... the DOS commands were only via keyboard combinations, which had to be remembered! No mouse, no 'Windows' (and, before Fredrick Noronha begins howling, no Linux either!) Two floppy drives, one for booting/programs, the other for data (no core memory.) One job or one program at a time (no 'hyper' threading, no multi processors!) What a long way in such a short time! The strides -- particularly after the semi-conductor, fiber optics and high-speed wireless -- have been so huge and so rapid that today's top-of-the-line PC becomes tomorrow's bullock cart. PCs were the first part of the revolution. Ten years later, in 1991, came the second -- and the more significant, insofar as it impacts our lives: the www. Dumb PCs could now 'talk' to one another anywhere in the world -- instantly. We know some of the ways the chip and internet affect our lives. Computerized machines, from toys to dishwashers, Systems from radars to rail-tracks, the information superhighway, call centres working half way round the globe, internet telephony, instant mailing, video chatting, shopping, DTP, what have you. I am no Alvin Toffler but all that, to my mind, is just the curtain raiser. The realm of possibility is mind-boggling. A few years from now, there'll be a "virtual" of everything, from thinking pads to artificial brains. Move over PCs. Enter a new world of wireless, hand-held 'media' computers, smart drives and "U3" flash devices ... Only my staff used my first PC in 1994, for accounting and correspondence. My 'Guru-ji' tried his best to convince me I must learn, that the age of DOS was long over, that bullock cart drivers now handled PCs. Then one day 'Guru' (my friend and advocate, Gurudatt Mallya) came over and, in his step-by-step logical style, explained the basics in less than two hours. Another friend, Vivek Naik, in half an hour, demonstrated the use of the browser and mailclient. "Dummies" guides rounded the initial learning. But for them, you wouldn't be reading this column ... catch me pounding at the good ole typewriter and delivering hard copies to the Herald office every Friday! Inventions bring change. Necessity brings inventions. Even the dreaded WW-II brought inventions. The Third Reich gave us the magnetic tape, as in the audio/video cassettes we long enjoyed. It was invented to record enemy communication (for easy deciphering) and to relay theirs on high-speed playback. WW-II also gave us the Volkswagen (VW) "Beetle." Because Gen. Rommel's 'Afrika Corps' needed an air-cooled engine -- water for radiators was a logistical nightmare in the dessert. In place of WW, we have WWW to lighten life's miseries. Happy anniversary! Also to 'Goanet' (http://goanet.org), an e-forum of Goans worldwide, that celebrated twelve years last Friday. And to all who celebrate Vigneshwara, the Lord of Wisdom, a Happy Chaturthi! (ENDS) The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at: http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330 ============================================================================== The above article appeared in the August 28, 2006 edition of the Herald, Goa _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
