The 17th Century: The Invention of the First "Computers"

The devices often considered the first "computers" in our understanding were rather calculators than the sophisticated combination of hard- and software we call computers today.

In 1642 Blaise Pascal, the son of a French tax collector, developed a device to perform additions. His numerical wheel calculator was a brass rectangular box and used eight movable dials to add sums up to eight figures long. Designed to help his father with his duties, the big disadvantage of the Pascaline was its limitation to addition.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, a German mathematician and philosopher, in 1694 improved the Pascaline by creating a machine that could also multiply. As its predecessor Leibniz's mechanical multiplier likewise worked by a system of gears and dials. Leibniz also formulated a model that may be considered the theoretical ancestor of some modern computers. In De Arte Combinatoria (1666) Leibniz argued that all reasoning, all discover, verbal or not, is reducible to an ordered combination of elements, such as numbers, words, colors, or sounds.

Further improvements in the field of early computing devices were made by Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, a Frenchmen. His arithometer could not only add and multiply, but perform the four basic arithmetic functions and was widely used up until the First World War.

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FREEnet (The Network for Research, Education and Engineering)

FREEnet is an academic and research network, interconnecting computer networks of research institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, universities, colleges, and other research and academic institutions. It was established in 1991 by the N.D. Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry at the Center of Computer Assistance to Chemical Research. It provides its more than 350 members of the academic and educational community with all types of basic Internet services and various information services.

Strategies and Policies

FREEnets general intention is to become a backbone infrastructure providing:

Open networking services for efficient access to the network and information resources located both in Russia and all over the Internet.

Reliable network connectivity for research, academic and educational communities in Russia and abroad.

Worldwide access to science and information resources of the Russian Academy of Sciences, universities and colleges in Russia.

Assistance to the progress of Russian based fundamental research.

Assistance to the development and application of modern information technologies in education.

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Electronic Messaging (E-Mail)

Electronic messages are transmitted and received by computers through a network. By E-Mail texts, images, sounds and videos can be sent to single users or simultaneously to a group of users. Now texts can be sent and read without having them printed.

E-Mail is one of the most popular and important services on the Internet.

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Microsoft Corporation

Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen and headquartered in Redmond, USA, Microsoft Corporation is today's world-leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. As MS-DOS, the first operating system released by Microsoft, before, Windows, its successor, has become the de-facto standard operating system for personal computer. According to critics and following a recent court ruling this is due to unfair competition.

http://www.microsoft.com

For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0,5716,1524+1+1522,00.html

http://www.microsoft.com/
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0...
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Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

IRC is a text-based chat system used for live discussions of groups.

For a history of IRC see Charles A. Gimon, IRC: The Net in Realtime, http://www.skypoint.com/~gimonca/irc2.html

http://www.skypoint.com/~gimonca/irc2.html
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Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

b. July 1, 1646, Leipzig
d. November 14, 1716, Hannover, Hanover

German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus. 1661, he entered the University of Leipzig as a law student; there he came into contact with the thought of men who had revolutionized science and philosophy--men such as Galileo, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and René Descartes. In 1666 he wrote De Arte Combinatoria ("On the Art of Combination"), in which he formulated a model that is the theoretical ancestor of some modern computers.

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