Information Age
(1970 to nowadays)
What happened?
The Information Age is also called the computer age or digital age, a historical period characterized by the rapid shift from traditional industry to an economy based on information technology. Communication and transmission of information is on of the hallmarks of human civilization. The printing press, rise of the telegraph and telephone always found a way to the mass media. Think about radio, television, computer science and the internet.
The transition from the industrial age to the information age began in the 1970. Digitization of data increased in the 1980s and the importance of connected networks wit the adoption of personal computers, after the United States Department of Defense developed the internet. The transistor became fundamental part of all modern digital electronics. Digital revolution marked the beginning of the Information Age.
Information is stored and transmitted in digital form. That is an important characteristic of this information age. The central position of information could only be achieved through electronics and the exchange of data via the Internet. Producing goods has become less important to the economy.
The amount of information is growing exponentially. It had led to the phenomenon of mass data. In the form of files, photos and films, consumers are storing data themselves. More and more devices are collecting data, storing, and exchanging data themselves. Storage and analysis of this data plays an important role.
For keeping up to the information, more technological changes are needed. Fiber optic cables and faster microprocessors are just a few developments. The World Wide Web, initially used by companies as an electronic billboard for their products and services, morphed into an interactive consumer exchange. Electronic mail (e-mail) permitted near-instant exchange of information for professional and personal communications. Digitalization has had found an impact on traditional media businesses.
Digitized information has become valuable and powerful in a relatively short period of time. Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Steve Jobs and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg are influential brokers in the Information Age.
First Supercomputer - Cray-1
± 1975
The board was originally part of the Cray-1 Supercomputer, which was installed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a federal research facility, founded in 1952. In 1971 the laboratory became autonomous and in 1981 designated as a national laboratory. They described themselves as a "leading research and development institute for science and technology applied to national security".
The complete Cray-1 weighed 5,5 tons and was capable of up to 80 million floating point operations per second (80 MHz). In the world of early digital computers, Seymour Cray was a legend. He had already made previous attempts to make large supercomputers. Cray eschewed the methods of the past and created a new kind of supercomputing company with only four main principles: simplicity, size; discipline and cooling. Previous attempts to create a viable supercomputer involved incredibly complex integrated circuits.
The Cray-1 used three different types of integrated circuits throughout the machine. As a result, the architecture was simplified. For cooling, freon circulated through stainless steel tubes fastened between vertical wedges of aluminium placed between stacks of printed circuit boards. The machine was so advanced that a bidding war ensued for the first machine of the line. $8,8 million was paid. The Cray-1 was a commercial success until the 1990s.
The supercomputer's iconic look is more than just its 1970s aesthetic. The cabinet's columnar design minimized the amount of wiring between processing stacks. The cushions at the base of each tower covered the huge power supplies.
Rock Limited Edition. Found: Franklin, Georgia, US (JN0349)
School Diary
± 1985
The Rotterdam company Poot was one of the first to try to sell the school diary in 1898. It was then a very solid book to write homework in. Over the years, instructive additions were made e.g., dates, spelling rules, and especially proverbs. Brave booklets intended to encourage the learner. To preserve the ideological identity, an agenda was often prescribed by the school itself. Proper use was strictly monitored. Every week the agenda was picked up and checked for movie star pictures. In reformed schools you were not allowed to put anything in your agenda. If they found a movie star, it was ripped out. If it said anything about girls, you could be expelled from school.
Nevertheless, the school diary developed into a place where you could write uncensored. That role as a kind of outlet grew from the 1960s and went hand in hand with the rise of the pop music-oriented youth culture. Decorating it became a “serious” affair. Pictures of movie stars and pop artists were pasted and commented on. The first kiss or the first beer were also noted. The authority was criticized with text, drawing and photo. The teenager created his personal calling card with his diary: this is who I am.
This did not go unnoticed by the publishing world. It responded to this from the 1960s by launching special agendas. With photos and facts about bands, musicians, or sports.
The change from a learning tool to a means of self-expression was not without problems. For example, 'The Other Agenda' by publisher De Bezige Bij in 1971 caused a stir. According to a newspaper, it was intended for the 'fewer sweet students in secondary education'. This alternative diary contained useful information about conscription and conscientious objection, about labor children as victims of education, (free) sexuality, democracy at school, drugs, Vietnam, the exploitation of Suriname, the Netherlands, and the Third World and about alienation and capitalism. Hendrik Koekoek, the leader of the Peasant Party, asked for a ban. He was not alone in this. Others, too, feared “the corruption of our youth.” In an open letter, concerned Catholic parents spoke of a school diary that “in a most sophisticated and perfidious way shamelessly initiates students into obscenities and perversions. It can only result in total moral ruin."
At first the choice of school diary was still modest, but the number of titles increased during the 1980s. Each student found a suitable agenda. That could be from a heavy metal agenda to a Donald Duck agenda. A standout was the Joop Klepzeiker agenda, which excelled in rudeness and bad taste, popular with the rebellious schoolboy.
Diaries were often banned from schools because of their free content. Many schools continued to stick to their own planner for safety. In 2013, a reformed school community in Kampen, the Netherlands, destroyed the complete circulation of its own agenda, after complaints from some parents. One of the photos showed a student with a peace sign. They believed that the sign was originally the symbol under which the Roman Emperor Nero persecuted and tortured the early Christians. It would also have an occult and diabolical dimension. The school principal stated with the wrong choice of words that he did not want to unleash 'no witch hunt'.
In the meantime, digital school diaries have appeared during the 21st century for use on a notebook, smartphone or tablet and schools have provided websites with online planners. Nevertheless, the paper diary remains popular. The need to express yourself through your agenda is still there. That still works best on paper.
Apple Mouse. Found: Bangor, Maine, US (JN0126)
Computer Mouse
± 1986
Bernardino Ramazzini, physician, talks about a notary or writer's disease in 1743. Other names are: Monk's, writer's cramp, pickers, knitting, hairdresser's and butcher’s arm.
A research team of Canadian Navy had to find a way to record the ever-changing positions of attacking and defending vessels in 1949. The result was DATAR (Digital Automated Tracking And Resolving), a using radar and sonar system, accurately mapping the battlefield. Position data was obtained using a "trackball". The prototype of this trackball was made around 'five pins' bowlingball with a diameter of 16 cm. DATAR worked perfectly, but due the heavy costs never been put to use.
Douglas Engelbart and William English were looking, in 1963, for a practical way to control a cursor on a screen. The first model consisted of a wooden box with an electrical wire connector attached to it. It reminded them of a mouse and that's how the device got its name. Two perpendicular wheels registered the movements of the mouse. It wans’t until 1981 that the first mouse came standard with a computer, the Xerox Star, gave the mouse balls. The wheels of the. mouse, powered by a ball in the sole of the device, greatly improved the precision work. The cost of Xerox Star, $ 75.000 (as other computers), was temporarily out of reach of the mass.
During the 1980s IBM released its computers with DOS, the legendary operating software of Bill Gates. The computer began its march. At first only cautious in the companies, as a word processor and making schedules. Using it was anything but easy. You first had to enter commands with the keyboard. They were also English terms.
The mouse turned out to play a leading role, in 1985, in a more user-friendly operation in the first version of Windows. The mouse turned out to be the way to control computers with a graphical interface. You didn’t have to be a computer nerd anymore, to work with it. Prices fell sharply. The breakthrough of the PC had no obstacles in its way.
The entry of a scroll wheel arrived in 1995. The ball disappeared a few years later for a light-controlled drive, breakthrough of the wireless mouse. The LED of the optical mouse was replaced by the more precise laser. Then came the bluetrack where the computer mouse functions on almost any flat surface.
Not everyone is experienced in using a mouse. In 1998, the Dutch ex-prime minister, Wim Kok, was openly laughed at when he used the mouse as a remote control in front of the camera and clicked somewhat uncertainly with it to the screen. Someone who cannot handle the mouse was called computer illiterate.
About 2003, the mouse arm (syndrome), scientific term "RSI" (Repetitive Strain Injury), a disease that manifests itself in pain and stiffness of the finger, arm or neck was acknowledged. It is caused by consequence of prolonged repetition of movements. Mouse-arm seemed to be the next public disease. With the wrong attitude, it was just a matter of time before the terrible disease would strike. Some companies hired masseurs to save workers from the disaster. There was a suspicion of media hype and that the mouse arm did not really existed.
It looks (2021) like the computer mouse will die out. This with the arrival and popularity of laptop and tablet with touchscreen. The mouse is already superfluous for many applications. There are experiments with computers that are only controlled by hand movements. Specialized computer users do not want to miss the accuracy of the mouse. And the players of computer games does not want to lose him too.
Steve Jobs
± 1991
This swatch of a black turtleneck from Steve Jobs is one of the earliest examples of what would become his eventual signature style. The turtleneck sweater was worn by Steve at the 1991 PC Forum meeting. The sweater was later sold by his personal assistant and put up for sale at a public auction.
Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, and died on October 5, 2011, of a rare form of pancreatic cancer. His parents decided to have him adopted by the working-class Jobs family. As Steven Paul Jobs, he rose to the pinnacle of global business. His companies revolutionized several industries. His vision reshaped much of the modern technological world.
The founding of Apple with his business partner Steve Wozniak makes him famous. The two men launched the company in 1976 with electronics companion Ronald Wayne. The Apple-1 was an ordinary raw motherboard. This first product was rough. The promise of the Apple-1 was not in making and selling components, but in the concept of a personal computer that could be bought by millions of people. The introduction of the Apple II realized the concept. Apple's history is complex, as with any longevity company in a rapidly changing industry. Atari, Commodore, and Tandy were the early competitors that were later replaced by the monolithic IBM. Apple went through a major transition when it developed adaptations of XEROX PARC's graphical interface for the Apple Lisa and later the Macintosh.
Steve was ousted by Apple's board of directors in 1985 as head of the Macintosh group. In fact, he was fired. He founded a new computer company. NeXT was in many ways the most significant turning point in his career. The company never managed to realize the expected sales of its innovative hardware. Their software products became very influential. Despite all the hustle and bustle for NeXT, Steve found time to speculate in the computer animation field after purchasing a division of Lucasfilm to start a new company, Pixar.
During the early years under the leadership of computer animation pioneer Ed Catmull, they developed high-quality graphics computing equipment and software. In 1989, Pixar won an Academy Award for Tin Toy. This led to the opportunity to make the computer animated movie Toy Story. It became the highest-grossing film of 1995. Steve Jobs became an instant billionaire after publicly offering Pixar's success. This enabled his return to Apple and a year later he was CEO of the company that bought NeXT.
By changing Apple's entire focus through a complicated process, Apple became a leader in consumer electronics. The iPod music player in 2001 was the beginning. The iPod became Windows' competitor in 2004. In 2007, he launched the iPhone and sold 1,4 million units. That device made Apple the most valuable company in the world.
Authentic Handwriting. Found: Laredo, Texas, US (JN0542)
POTUS Donald J. Trump
± 2015
Donald J. Trump (born 1943) is an American businessman and politician. From 2017 to 2021, he was the 45th president of the United States. He belongs to the Republican Party, one of two political parties in their Democratic state. By profession he is an entrepreneur mainly in real estate.
The world knows him mainly as a television personality. He owes this to his promotional efforts, career, and appearances in the media and books. Outside the U.S. Donald Trump is best known as a tough businessman. A lot of things are taken from him despite or put in his shoes. He is a man who is stirring up a lot of controversy in the world.
The fact that he himself was never called up or sent out to fight in the Vietnam War is blamed by many. In business terms, he expanded the family business into a mega-sized organization of approximately 250 companies. Personally, he has never gone bankrupt. Its casinos and hotels have gone bankrupt a few times.
Trump has been a member of every political party politically. In 2015, just before writing our item, Trump officially ran for the 2016 presidential election. He quickly became the most popular Republican candidate. He won the election in November 2016 and stepped down as president in 2017. As a Republican, he wanted to make America great again, which was his political slogan. During his political career, his almost daily tweets played a major role.
The man was chased by scandals. It was quickly claimed that Trump has paid very little tax for years. During his presidential campaign, this news was used against him. Then a video clip surfaced that discredited him in a sexist way. He lost a lot of support because of this. It didn't stop there. After he publicly apologized, a few women appeared in the media who claimed that Trump had ever touched them inappropriately. Against all odds, he nevertheless won the election.
As president, Donald Trump wanted to tackle illegal immigration from Mexico. Trump wanted a wall on the US border and Mexico build. The budget for the border wall became a contentious issue and was never finalized. His foreign policy also seemed strange. For example, he threatened to destroy North Korea, which raised eyebrows worldwide. Trump has been slow to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. After that, he repeatedly accused China of concealing the origin of the outbreak. He himself often spoke about "fake news" in the media.
In 2020, after denying his presidential defeat and his influence in the storming of the Capitol, Trump was blocked by Twitter and Facebook.