Before we delve into the magical world of the world wide web, we have to talk about the devices that it runs on. Computers!
The idea of computers goes back to the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Their uses ranged from calculators to file catalogs to code breakers. Some of the first computer engineers were Alan Turning, Ada Lovelace, David Packard, and Bill Hewlett. The first computers that we are most likely to recognize were simple calculators, although simple is hardly the right word as they took up a massive amount of space. (A far cry from the handheld devices that we have today)
The first computer to ever run a program was developed by Frederic Williams, Tom Kilburn, and Geoff Toothill. Their creation, the Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), also known as the Manchester Baby, was built to test memory technology. The program, originally written by Kilburn and Willams, was tested on June 21st, 1948 and consisted of 17 instructions. This marked the beginning of a new age of computing technology.
We are one step closer to the internet.