The power of the computer

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
- Popular Mechanics, 1949

Of course, since 1949 personal computing has made extraordinary leaps and bounds. The laptop computer with which I am typing this post weighs a mere few kilograms, yet the power of this relatively small unit would undeniably leave the room-sized computers of those times in its wake.

While the history of computing and the power of modern computers was most explicitly covered in Weeks 1 and 2 of this semester's COMP1900 course, the demonstration of the power of the modern computer was made throughout the semester. This semeser our class experienced first-hand the key utilities relevant to 21st century computer users: use of the internet, word processing, the creation of meta-data for our digital information and the managment of our print resources, spreadsheeting and visualsing data, database use and the creation of presentations.

The earliest computers solely performed mathematical calculations. This function alone is now managed by handheld calculators, meaning that the abilites of the laptop or desktop computer is phenomenal, and only set to grow as a result of constant research and development.