A common misconception about computers is that they are smarter than humans. Actually, the degree of a computer¹s intelligence depends on the speed of its ignorance. Today¹s complex computers are not really intelligent at all. The intelligence is in the people who design them. Therefore, in order to understand the intelligence of computers, one must first look at the history of computers, the way computers handle information, and, finally, the methods of programming the machines.
The predecessor to today¹s computers was nothing like the machines we use today. The first known computer was Charles Babbage¹s Analytical Engine; designed in 1834. (Constable 9) It was a remarkable device for its time. In fact, the Analytical Engine required so much power and would have been so much more complex than the manufacturing methods of the time, it could never be built.
No more than twenty years after Babbage¹s death, Herman Hollerith designed an electromechanical machine that used......
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