INVITATION TO CYBERSECURITY 16 fore, the more advanced computer is doing a significant amount of “calculating,” but it still returns the result instantly. In this scenario, it would take a human being much more time than the computer to process all of the data and determine the answer. This begins to show the potential of computers. Figure 2.5 A computer for calculating the vacation preferences for a group of people (this graphic is missing many of the wires and gates necessary to solve the problem). One important feature that these figures do not illustrate well is that circuits also output binary data that can then become input into another circuit. By stringing these inputs and outputs together in general-purpose circuits, instead of just calculating a single state and then stopping, a computer would emerge capable of doing much more than deciding the suitability of vacation destinations. It could in principle solve any logical problem at warp speed. 2.1.5 Encapsulation and Abstraction “Software, we’ve seen, is a thing of layers, with each layer translating information and processes for the layers above and below. At the bottom of this stack of layers sit the machine with its pure binary ones and zeros. At the top are the human beings, building and using these layers.” - Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg The first computer, believe it not, was probably about as simple as what is illustrated in Figure 2.4. Clearly we have come a long way since the first digital computers were created in the 1940s. How did we get from something so simple to today’s computers that allow us to conduct video calls across the world (among many other incredible things)?
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