The world wide web? Computer Educated people only?

Question

In the quote below what does he mean by learning a different program on each computer, what programs is he refering to.

And can you explain the whole quotation in simple terms, what does he want to say./

thanks


"Well, I found it frustrating that in those days, there was different information on different computers, but you had to log on to different computers to get at it. Also, sometimes you had to learn a different program on each computer. So finding out how things worked was really difficult. Often it was just easier to go and ask people when they were having coffee.
Because people at CERN came from universities all over the world, they brought with them all types of computers. Not just Unix, Mac and PC: there were all kinds of big mainframe computer and medium sized computers running all sorts of software.
I actually wrote some programs to take information from one system and convert it so it could be inserted into another system. More than once. And when you are a programmer, and you solve one problem and then you solve one that's very similar, you often think, "Isn't there a better way? Can't we just fix this problem for good?" That became "Can't we convert every information system so that it looks like part of some imaginary information system which everyone can read?" And that became the WWW."

Answer 1

Before there was any uniformity in the computing industry, There were different manufacturers. Think of it in the terms of the automobile industry. HP part won't work on a Dell. So in that time period for a user to go from one machine to another was like going from a automatic to a manual transmission.

Answer 2

It sounds like this was written several decades ago, when computers were a lot different than they were now. Back then, computers were new and pretty rare, and so they weren't mass produced at all. There was no such thing as a standard operating system like Windows or Mac OS, and if someone had a computer then they probably had software on it that they had created themselves.



You couldn't go to a computer store and buy programs, you had to make your own. So everyone had different programs, and if you wanted to use another person's computer, then you had to learn how to use their programs, which were different than the ones on our computer. And by programs, I mean things like the operating system, early word processor type things, and things like that. They didn't have the internet back then. And you had to use other people's computers, because the internet didn't exist yet.



If you wanted information that was on another computer you had to go use that computer. Computers weren't connected to each other in any way. I'm sure you can imagine that that was time consuming and difficult. Plus computers weren't graphics based back then either, you had to type commands instead of clicking on an icon to open something. That meant you had to learn and memorize a whole bunch of commands if you wanted to do anything. And different computers had different commands. And, remember, you had to physically go to a different computer if you wanted the information that was on it. Not to mention the fact that sometimes the other computer might be in a different country.



So, basically, he's saying that he was thinking that it would be great if there was an easier way to do things, like if you could connect to another computer from your own computer without having to go and learn how to use the other computer. And so the World Wide Web was invented. That's what the web is - a website is information stored on someone else's computer that you can see on your computer by using the internet.



Suppose you have a friend who's living overseas right now, and they have some pictures you want to look at on their computer. They can put them on a web page, and you can see them without even leaving your home. Without the WWW, you would have to get on a plane and go to their computer and look at them. That's basically what he's saying.

Answer 3

hi yawash y, when computer first came out they were confusing say the first part of windows 95 it was a lot of dots and dashes then computer began to change the designers had in mind for a woman to get cook book recepties but when they went to the world wide web all the computers became independant some started making mac while others started making pentiums i came in on windows 98 a very confusing windows although it offered win 95 many years has past and now you can buy what you want so the writter is discribing these changes but not everybody had a big education a lot of the biggest inventers was someone that showed an tallent for what he was working on so he made money off of his invention. gooly look at all of the functions that computers can do now they are like an automobile when they a back yard mechanic used to do his own repairs one day i'm afraid computers will do the same thing. they next window that microsoft is comming out with is calling for eight gb of ram that is a lot of ram my friend. my wife said that i would run right out and buy it and i said not so but i have had secoind thoughts i would have to see the windows. good luck hope i was helpful to you

Answer 4

in the beginning there was no standard and so all computer programmers would write their own version on computer language which could only be used on their computer. With standardisation it made it possible to read on any computer, hence the WWW

Answer 5

The person speaking had access to many different computers.

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Each computer was like different country. Each had it's own language, culture, laws, religions.

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Example: All computers have the same program.

Area of a circle = PI * Square(RADIUS)

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- Computer 1: Area(Circle) == square(RADIUS) * PI

- Computer 2: Circle(Area) == * PI (square(radius)

- Computer 3: Circle.Area == [RADIUS]*[RADIUS]* [PI]