Computing: cloud computingA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWical Engine. Babbage was assisted by Augusta
Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815–1842),
daughter of Lord Byron, whose expertise quali-
fi ed her to be called the fi rst female computer
programmer. In her honour the US Defence
Department named a programming language
after her – ADA – in the 1980s.
The story of the computer comprises the
diversifi cation of its uses, the speed of its opera-
tion and the progressive reduction of its size,
from mainframe to desktop, to laptop to palm-
top. Events boosted progress, in particular the
Second World War (1939–45); the Z3 computer
developed by Konrad Zuse was used to design
airplanes and missiles while Colossus, Britain’s
code-breaking computer, was specifically
designed to decipher German war communica-
tions.
Technical specifications improved perfor-
mance and reduced size rapidly, vacuum tubes
and resisters giving way to transistors, and once
components could be fi tted on to single chips- semiconductors – programming advanced
dramatically. The Intel chip of 1971 proved a
landmark in computer design at a period when
diversification of computer functions was
matched by growing public interest.
Soon the computer was central to the opera-
tion of practically every aspect of modern life,
from defence to building-design, typesetting to
criminal investigation, satellite communication
to the automobile industry, fi lming to fashion,
electronic voting and gaming to word process-
ing and traffi c control. A key expansion was the
microprocessor making possible the introduc-
tion by the IBM company in 1981 of the first
personal computer, followed three years later by
a global rival, the apple macintosh.
Networking of computers followed, using
telephone lines or Local Area Networks (LAMs)
and, for better or worse, the e-mail. Soon the
computer was to lead us into the Digital Age –
one of breathtaking new developments, many
amazing, some worrying; an age, of course,
touched upon throughout this dictionary.
▶To follow the story of the computer in the late
twentieth and early twenty-fi rst centuries, see the
thorough and readable account by Paul A. Friebeger
and Michael R. Swaine in the online Encyclopaedia
Britannica, or the entry ‘Computers: history and
development’ in the Jones Telecommunications and
Multimedia Encyclopaedia; also, for a detailed tech-
nical analysis, Wikipedia.
Computing: cloud computing internet
computing system in which sources are shared
in similar ways to an electricity grid, with key
and earthquakes syndrome.
Competence In linguistics, a term used to
describe a person’s knowledge of his/her own
language, its system of rules; his/her compe-
tence in understanding an unlimited number of
sentences, in spotting grammatical errors, etc.
Compliance See anticipatory compliance.
Compliance, climate of See kuuki.
Compliance, identifi cation and internaliza-
tion See internalization.
Complicity of users Term employed by Cees
J. Hamelink to describe the reluctance of audi-
ences to be told the truth about crises – particu-
larly war situations, but also in cases concerning
government and corporate matters. In ‘Ethics
for media users’ published in the European
Journal of Communication, December 1995,
Hamelink cites fi ndings that indicated nearly 8
out of 10 Americans supporting restrictions on
information imposed by the Pentagon, while 6
out of 10 said they believed the military should
have exercised greater censorship. ‘The [1st
Gulf ] war demonstrated that offi cial censorship,
journalistic self-censorship and the users’ refusal
to be informed reinforced each other.’ Hamelink
goes on, ‘Th e complicity of users was an essen-
tial component in the reduction of freedom of
media performance.’ See news management
in times of war.
Compression technology A key science in
the Age of Information, in particular the era of
digitization: the more data becomes available,
the broader the available bandwidth, the greater
the requirement to compress information, to
compact data for transmission. See broadband.
Computer Name derives from the French,
computer, to calculate and the Latin, putare,
to think, determine by number. Th e computer
is a general-purpose information processor, its
origin reaching back over a thousand years to
the abacus. It then progressed via the Pascaline,
a numerical wheel calculator, invented by French
philosopher (then a teenager), Baise Pascall
(1623–62). This was improved by a German
mathematician named Gottfried Willem
von Leibnitz (1646–1716), who extended the
machine’s capacity for addition to multiplication.
By general consent, the true father of the
computer was English professor and mathemati-
cian Charles Babbage (1791–1871). In 1822 he
introduced the concept of a steam-powered
Diff erence Engine, as he called it. It was – in
theory, for the machine was never built – the fi rst
automated computer with a stored program; its
purpose was to perform diff erential equations.
Th is was followed a decade later with the Analyt-