In Online Tutorial 4 you discussed ‘What factors make a person's contributions important to the development of a new technology and why some personalities go down in history, while others remain unknown and excluded from history books.’ Describe how the online tutorial discussion helped you to choose the personality selected for Part 1 of the TMA.
Message A
Hello everyone
If a person’s contribution is for ease of use of an application this would
be an important factor as it will also help sell the product. Similar to
the development of the mouse, which enabled point and click, and the development
of the GUI (Graphical User Interface) enabling mere mortals like ourselves
to interact with computers.
A persons contribution may be the beginning of an idea that others can develop
and progress, this initial idea being an important required factor. The idea
may not be realised for many years like Paul Baran developing message switching
in the 1960s but not being fully utilised until years later. The initial
idea was not important at the time but it is now, now the technology is needed
and used widely.
I think some personalities go down in history because they have been marketed
very well, Bill Gates being the biggest example. He releases his operating
systems with bugs and errors and we all put up with it rather than changing
to other more reliable operating systems such as Unix and O/S2. We stick
with Microsoft because it seems the most popular.
People may be excluded from history books for their contributions because
they want to be. Or, they may work for a huge corporation, within a team
of developers so their names are not mentioned.
Thank you
Message B
Hi Dot
You are always first in our conferences, well done.
I like your ideas on the factors that make a person’s contributions important.
I also think that an idea has to be original, something that is worthwhile
and may improve our lives. Certainly if a housework robot can be developed
as Zoe dreams of in a previous message, and I think may even be in development,
I will buy one. Well, when they have been around a while and the price has
gone down a bit.
Yes, I think an idea has to be exploitable as with Bill Gates selling Windows
Operating Systems, they don’t actually work without errors and we’ve all
been exploited into buy it with the intention that it will make our lives
easier. I think we have turned into a culture of users of Windows Operating
Systems. It reminds me of the VHS/Betamax race back in the 1980s, VHS was
marketed better and it won the race, buyers of Betamax hardly got any films
to watch.