The effects of computing power, therefore the effective potential of computers is beyond us. Even for something "man-made", the evolution of computers, and the social impacts of their use has grown beyond our comprehension. I seek not to bring into light the purpose of computing, but rather to explain the social impacts of this digital evolution, through a simple physical timeline. I"m not going to explain what has been said before, but examine the social movement, this cyborg evolution, that has constantly been building the potential of computing since its conception. Throughout time, the physical size of computers has grown smaller, while the social potential of such has grown at an exponential rate.
Computers are all around us, and for most of us, it has always been that way. But let's travel back in time to a different era, to a completely different generation, to the birth of the first integrated circuit. The time is early 1960's. The era of the computer was ushered in with the birth of the first commercially available silicon based Integrated Circuit, from the Fairchild Corporation. Presently, microprocessors (or integrated circuits) are cheap enough so that anyone can purchase them at a reasonable price. Back at the dawn of the computing millennium, even the most simplistic microprocessor cost in the neighborhood of a couple thousand dollars. Therefore computers (and the access to their components) were only available to those with the financial resources, or to those who were lucky enough to be attending an upstate college or university with an extensive computing research center and program. Availability in this sense is the wrong word to describe the situation. We must also take into account the sheer physical size of these computing centers. Computers consumed entire wings of university halls and research centers. Additionally, only the chosen few could use the power of the computer at one time, while it took many people to run such a machine.
