How Did They Get to the Moon Without Powerpoint?
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How Did They Get to the Moon Without PowerPoint? Mordechai (Moti) Ben-Ari Department of Science Teaching Weizmann Institute of Science [email protected] Keynote speech at the Finnish Computer Science Society, May, 2003. 1 Developing a Technology The invention of writing, however, was the invention of an entirely new Let me start with a description of one of my first technology.[3, p. 9] full-time jobs: There is something to be said for this definition: I developed a technology for data min- do you remember those old movies that show “typ- ing in order to consolidate enterprise- ing pools,” where rows and rows of people, usually customer relations. women, sat pecking away at keyboards all day? Since I held that job in the early 1970s, clearly I would not have described my work in this terminol- ogy! What I actually did was: I wrote a program that read the system log, computed usage of CPU time and printed reports so that the users could be billed. My point in this talk is that hi-tech in general and computer science in particular did not begin in the 1990s, but that we have been doing it for decades. I believe that today’s students are being fed a lot of marketing propaganda to the contrary, and that they Well, things haven’t changed all that much! have completely lost a historical perspective of our discipline. I further believe that we have a respon- sibility as educators to downgrade the hype and to give our students a firm background in the scientific and engineering principles of computer science. The idea for this talk came to me while reading the hi-tech supplement that appears occasionally in a local newspaper. The supplement has a section in which they profile new startup companies, and invariably these companies “develop a technology,” though as far as I can understand from the short pro- files, they have simply designed and constructed a box of electronics or a computer program. So what is a “technology”? Here is one extreme view: I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that microchips Basically, microchips are merely a tech- are a mere “technical improvement,” but I certainly nical improvement over clay tablets. can’t accept that every new gadget or program is a 1 new technology. Here is a list of a few inventions 1974 - Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn published • that I would classify as new technologies: fiber op- “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnec- tics, flash memory, celluar communication, public- tion,” which specified in detail the design of a key cryptography, functional and logic program- Transmission Control Program (TCP). ming, packet protocols, fault-tolerant algorithms. What is common to all these “technologies” is that The relatively recent invention of web browsers is they brought about a radical new way of solving thus mere syntactic sugar on a very mature technol- problems, and that they stimulated research and de- ogy. velopment that continued for many years. To be fair, there is some justification for looking upon the Internet as a new technology. In 1993-4, I attempted to write a program (excuse me, develop a 2 The Internet Revolution? technology) and found a startup company to market it. In order to obtain a connection to the Internet, If there is one system that epitomizes the new hi- I was required to receive permission from the Min- tech world, it is the Internet. It enables us to engage istry of Communications, because at that time the in shopping, exchanging messages and sex, which only connections were through an inter-university are things we couldn’t do before. Ask your students hub and so I had to prove that I was engaged in when the Internet was invented and I wouldn’t be R&D! Of course, this merely shows that the obsta- surprised if their guesses averaged about 1990. It cles to the spread of the Internet were political and is therefore highly instructive to actually look at a economical, not technological. timeline of the milestones of its development. I’ll There are many visionaries who have held out only list a few of the major early milestones and re- extravagent promises for our wired future, not the fer you to [10] for more detail. least, ex-vice president of the US Al Gore with his information superhighway. Here is an example of 1961 - First paper on packet switching by such a utopian vision from Michael Dertouzos of • Leonard Kleinrock. MIT: A common bond reached through elec- 1968 - Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. • tronic proximity may help stave off fu- (BBN) was awarded the Packet Switch con- ture flareups of ethnic hatred and na- tract to build Interface Message Processors tional breakups. (IMPs). 1 Here are some additional quotes. Do you know 1969 - ARPANET was commissioned by DoD • when they were written? for research into networking. The first pack- ets were sent by Charley Kline at UCLA as he It is impossible that old prejudices and tried logging into SRI; the system crashed as hostilities should longer exist, while the letter G of LOGIN was entered. such an instrument has been created for the exchange of thought between all the 1971 - Ray Tomlinson of BBN invented an nations of the earth. • email program to send messages across a dis- [It] may not affect maganzine literature, tributed network. but the mere newspapers must submit to destiny, and go out of existence. 1973 - Bob Metcalfe’s Harvard PhD Thesis • outlined the basic idea for Ethernet. The con- The merchant goes home after a day of cept was tested on Xerox PARC’s Alto com- hard work and excitement to a late din- puters, and the first Ethernet network was ner, trying amid the family circle to for- called the Alto Aloha System. get business, when he is interrupted by a [message] from London, ..., and the 1973 - The File Transfer specification and poor man must dispatch his dinner as • Network Voice Protocol specification were hurriedly as possible in order to send off published. his message to California. The business 1US Senator Edward Kennedy congratulated BBN on ecumenical Interfaith Message Processor, which shows that you can’t trust politicians to understand technology. 2 man of the present day must be contin- April 1973. He placed this call to Joel Engel, Head ually on the jump[.] of Research at Bell Labs, which was also trying to develop the technology. Clearly, it takes some time These are clearly utopian visions that high- for new technologies to mature and to be widely ac- technology will bring us peace, brotherhood and cepted, but while celluar communication is certainly the paperless office, though instant communication a new technology, it does not follow that if you add throughout time zones will cause extreme stress in a camera to a cell phone, then you have developed a the work environment. new technology. This is just normal development of And here is a characterization of the monopolis- a mature technology and we will have to wait to see tic practices of the leading company: if it will be successful in the marketplace or not. Not surprisingly, the company regarded I want to make it clear that I am not a Luddite. its near monopoly as a good thing. The Luddites were English workers who protested Far from encouraging progress [the the changes of the Industrial Revolution, destroying CEO] claimed, competition between ri- wool and cotton mills early 19th century. The British val companies had actively hindered government suppressed the riots, executing 17 men it. [The company] insisted that its in 1813. Since then, the term Luddite has come to monopoly was in everyone’s interested, denote one who opposes advances in technology. even if it was unpopular, because it would encourage standardization. Is the author talking about Bill Gates and Microsoft? In fact, the quotes are taken from mid-19th cen- tury commentary on the use of the telegraph, and the monopolist CEO was William Orton of Western Union. Here is how Thomas Standage characterizes the introduction of the telegraph [8, p. vii-viii]: A new communications technology al- lowed people to communicate almost instantly across great distances. It rev- olutionized business practice, gave rise to new forms of crime, and inundated its users with a deluge of information. Ro- mances blossomed, secret codes were devised and cracked. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates and dismissed by the skep- tics. Governments and regulators tried and failed to control the new medium. A technological subculture with its own customs and vocabulary was establish- ing itself. If I may be allow to quote from the Bible: Mita¨ on I make my living from computers and always ollut, sita¨ on tulevinakin aikoina, mita¨ on tapahtunut, have done so. I routinely use the Internet and can’t sita¨ tapahtuu edelleen: ei ole mita¨an¨ uutta auringon bear to be away from my email for more than a day alla [Saarnaajan kirja 1(9)].2 In passing, it is worth- or so at a time. Furthermore, I have the all the mod- while noting that celluar communication is not at all ern gadgets: a cell phone, a Palm Pilot and a lap- a new technology. The concept was first proposed at top computer. I’m not a Luddite. But I believe that Bell Labs in 1947, and the first portable cell phone I have the perspective to see these gadgets as mere call was made by Martin Cooper of Motorola on 3 tools and not as a road to utopia.