Computers

I just found this excerpt (over on the ZumoDrive Blog) from a 1985 Interview with Steve Jobs just as the Mac was launching on just what computing entails:

PLAYBOY: Maybe we should pause and get your definition of what a computer is. How do they work?

STEVE JOBS: Computers are actually pretty simple. We’re sitting here on a bench in this cafe [for this part of the Interview]. Let’s assume that you understood only the most rudimentary of directions and you asked how to find the rest room. I would have to describe it to you in very specific and precise instructions. I might say, "Scoot sideways two meters off the bench. Stand erect. Lift left foot. Bend left knee until it is horizontal. Extend left foot and shift weight 300 centimeters forward..." and on and on. If you could interpret all those instructions 100 times faster than any other person in this cafe, you would appear to be a magician: You could run over and grab a milk shake and bring it back and set it on the table and snap your fingers, and I’d think you made the milk shake appear, because it was so fast relative to my perception. That’s exactly what a computer does. It takes these very, very simple-minded instructions—"Go fetch a number, add it to this number, put the result there, perceive if it’s greater than this other number"—but executes them at a rate of, let’s say, 1,000,000 per second. At 1,000,000 per second, the results appear to be magic.

That’s a simple explanation, and the point is that people really don’t have to understand how computers work. Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don’t have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don’t have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh—but you asked

Personally, I think that is one of the most brilliant descriptions of computing I've ever heard. And it is still technically correct, despite its simplicity. What this quote, I think, actually draws attention to, is just what computers are doing, and what we are doing that could make computers such an amazing thing.

Think about it, a computer is basically just a large calculator on steroids and yet, they've now taken on an enormous part of out lives and are capable of what people could only dream of not that many years ago. How we've come from a basic calculation device that filled a room and would give you results after about a week to near instant global networking of innumerable consumer PC's to create a network of information and people that can answer almost any question is even today a bit of a mystery. It seems to be the story of a series of very visionary people (Jobs among them) and some very dedicated groups each advancing in their own way, succeeding and failing in just the right places to create systems which then evolved and evolved until we have today's globally connected electronic world.

On a smaller scale, though, it's this evolution of systems that can really fascinate. Computers initially ran on actual physical glass valves and now the technology world gets all excited because we release a new line of processors which decrease in architecture size from 90 nanometer process to a 45 nanometer process. That's a change from .00000090 meters to .00000045 meters hoping to become .00000011 by 2015. The scale of computer electronics development is amazing not just for its capabilities, but it's evolutionary path. Fuelled by a realisation of possibility, few other things in the history of man with the possible exception of fire and the wheel have evolved quite so rapidly, so fervently and on such a scale. To obtain developments such as the 90nm to 45nm example, takes such levels of technology in itself that it is truly mind-altering. Engineers have managed to bring about a change of 0.00009955 meters since 1972 and this is a truly astonishing feat. Just the idea of 0.00009955 metres makes no sense to us. Our minds have not yet learnt to think on such scales, nor have we learnt to think on galactic scales, which only makes the computer evolution the more astonishing. We have put such development into this technological pursuit that it has (in some ways) evolved faster than our minds have been able to.

The majority of this lies in the same principle that makes parts of the internet so astonishing, elements of group theory and population dynamics combining to create a situation where such scales of individuals are working toward innumerable numbers of goals in myriads of pursuits, all combining into one crowning piece, combining the work of so many into one system.
And all of that is why us geeks absolutely love what we do. Bceause we all want to be a part of that 0.00009955 metres and we all can be.