A discussion of the core concepts of modern computing and their basis in history.
Dr Doron Swade offers a new analysis of the history of computing, suggesting that instead of a linear progression from one phase to the next, it is better understood as a series of separate computational functions diverging and converging.
Dr Swade goes beyond the analysis of the history of computing as moving from the Mechanical to the Electromechanical and then to the Electronic phase. Instead he argues that the history of computing is better understood as the diverging and merging of a series of streams which represent very separate computational functions or paradigms: Calculation, Automatic Computation, Information Management, Communication and the Electronic Information Age.

This is the 2013 Gresham-BSHM lecture, tracing the origins of the core concepts of modern computing.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-grand-narrative-of-the-history-of-computing

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,500 lectures free to access or download from the website.
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