Technology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Technology - Essay Example Ideas such as the "bigger is better" now became meaningless. And this transform paved the way for the development of smaller, faster and more reliable machines. In its initial stages, the computer was distant from the American public. Most of the American thought that computers were a sort of alien systems for which they had no use in daily life. Computer developers tried to change that idea by making their systems smaller and easy to find. As a result of this approach, computer technology became well attached to the roots of the American lifestyle by the early eighties of the 21st century. Computers were now sufficiently developed and available to satisfy customer's requirements. Ideas for computer applications were also developed and introduced new banking, entertainment and shopping practices. The development of the integrated circuit in the early 1960's made possible the design and construction of affordable computers that were very accurate and were also small enough to be deployed in an office or a classroom. The video display terminal and the multi-tasking abilities of those new computers made them a popular choice. As a result, ATM machines were introduced for the first time. The early ATM machines were not dependent on a centralized computer network; however, their popularity was on the rise. By the early 1980's, the ATM security was increased, and the machine became a public necessity in the United States. The ATM machine began to appear in different shops and stores. And by the mid eighties, 40 percent of the customers completed about 50 percent of their banking transactions using ATMs. The video game development serves as the best example of how the American entertainment routine was transformed. Steve Russell's "space war" was the first such game developed in 1962. At that time, Russell was MIT graduate student. In his game, a spacecraft was represented by two dots. The dots were controlled by two separate switches. This game became very popular all over the United States, especially among students, and it makes the beginning of the video game industry. In early 1968, "Odyssey", the first home video game system was introduced by Ralph Baer. Crude graphic lines were created by deploying 40 diodes in the system. In 1972, The Odyssey system appeared in the market and thus opened the way for competition in the field. In the same year, Nolan Bushnell announced the foundation of Atari that created the first commercially flourishing coin-based "pong". This was a simple ping-pong video game where large number scores are possible. It was first displayed in California at a club in Sunnyvale. The public was amazed. In 1977, Atari decided to enter the video entertainment market after pong's astonishing success. Their experience was not initially successful, however, the VCS or video computer system designed by Atari sold about 15 million units and thus Atari was now one of the building blocks of the American home entertainment industry. In addition to the home systems, other public consoles were designed by the company and by early 1980's over a million such systems were spread over the entire country. The American lifestyle and video games were now integrated. Computer technology also transformed the music industry. Robert Moog, a Cornell University PhD student, created the first