Difference between revisions of "Alison Movish"

From Hst250
Jump to: navigation, search
(Wiki Entry #2 Roberta Williams)
(Jimmy Wales)
Line 33: Line 33:
  
 
Jimmy Wales, born August 7, 1966, is an American entrepreneur known for his creation of the internet website Wikipedia. Born and raised in a small town in Alabama, he attended The Randolph School, earning his bachelor's in finance, and gained and master's in finance at Auburn University ("Jimmy Wales Biography", 2006). After earning his education, he moved to Chicago where he worked as a options trader, earning enough money to eventually start his own internet company. He first began in 2000, with the creation of an online encyclopedia known as Nupedia. This site offered an opportunity for scholars and experts to create their own contribution to a free, online, encyclopedia. Nupedia's success ran short, and it turned out to be a slow and rather unsuccessful project.
 
Jimmy Wales, born August 7, 1966, is an American entrepreneur known for his creation of the internet website Wikipedia. Born and raised in a small town in Alabama, he attended The Randolph School, earning his bachelor's in finance, and gained and master's in finance at Auburn University ("Jimmy Wales Biography", 2006). After earning his education, he moved to Chicago where he worked as a options trader, earning enough money to eventually start his own internet company. He first began in 2000, with the creation of an online encyclopedia known as Nupedia. This site offered an opportunity for scholars and experts to create their own contribution to a free, online, encyclopedia. Nupedia's success ran short, and it turned out to be a slow and rather unsuccessful project.
 +
 +
Wales turned to his partner Larry Sanger, and in 2001, created Wikipedia through the use of wiki software. This new and improved site offered the opportunity for anyone to create and edit any page on Wikipedia's website ("Jimmy Wales Biography", 2006). The website saw unpredictable growth and was a huge success among internet users.
  
 
==Works Cited (Roberta Williams)==
 
==Works Cited (Roberta Williams)==

Revision as of 14:33, 24 June 2010

Wiki Entry #1 Herman Hollerith

IBM is currently one of the largest global technological brands in the world. This power-house of a company carries its history all the way back to the nineteenth-century. From business computers from personal computers, Herman Hollerith was the man who began a revolution that still affects our lives greatly today. What would begin as electrical connections to trigger the calculations of millions of pieces of data, would eventually turn into the modern computer: a technological advancement common seen in almost every American's home.

Although his original plan may have been far fetched from the at home device seen so frequently in our homes, Hollerith's goal was to aid the calculations of the 1890 U.S. Census. The original methods of collecting Census data were done by hand, and as seen in 1880, took as long as 8 years to calculate. With the American population rapidly expanding, the 1890 calculations would have taken substantially longer than the 1880 Census (Aul, 1972). To Hollerith and the U.S. Census office, there was only one option: to calculate the numbers more quickly and efficiently. He entered a contest proposed by the U.S. Census bureau. Herman Hollerith rose to the occasion. As proposed in his PhD thesis, Herman presented the idea of his Hollerith desk, also known as the tabulating machine. This revolutionary machine could detect the location of holes on each Census card, and consequently tally the overall numbers and characteristics of the tabulations. (Hollerith,1889). Herman won the contest, and it was a great success. The Hollerith Desk proved to provide faster statistics at a cheaper cost for processing. In turn, the Census calculations only took 3 years, (as opposed to 8 in the 1880 Census) and saved nearly 5 million dollars doing so.

Shortly after his great success, in 1896, Herman founded the Tabulating Machine Company in Washington, DC. He opened a shop and began leasing punch cards and tabulators to government businesses for the 1900 Census. Understanding that The U.S. Census Bureau would have to pay whatever he charged to produce the calculations, he raised his prices for use of the Hollerith Machines. However, he began asking for such high prices for the use of his technology that the Census bureau began exploring other options ("History: Herman Hollerith). The Census Bureau gave Hollerith an ultimatum to either cut his prices or they would make and improve the machines themselves. Hollerith refused. (Aul, 1972). In a time where patent restrictions and lawsuits were easier to slip past, Census Bureau employees were able to create their own, more advanced tabulating machines, just in time for the 1910 census. Herman Hollerith's company was nearly driven off the market. Outraged, Herman wrote in letters and newspapers to the President threatening to sue for infringement of his patent. After seven years, he his legal battle to the government and the lawsuit was destroyed.

Despite of the lawsuit battle, In 1911, Hollerith and four other corporations merged to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Company. Hollerith was the company's consulting engineer until reaching retirement in 1921. In 1924, the Computing Tabulating Recording Company changed it's name to International Business Machine, also known as IBM. Today, IBM serves as an enormous corporation helping people achieve the same goals Herman Hollerith once did. He revolutionized the idea that machines could producing faster, more efficient ways of achieving data (History: Herman Hollerith). Despite the modern development of computers during the twentieth and twenty-first century, versions of Hollerith's original card tabulating machine still has its place in modern data processing.

Hollerith was a true innovator of his time. In many ways, he set the state for the beginning of machines and computers creating a faster and more efficient way to get things done. He was able to conceive the idea that if engineered correctly, a machine could be programmed to the produce work of a human, in a less time-consuming and more cost-efficient manor. He looked to the future as a chance to make progressions in the way the world works; he realized that computer machinery was destined to grow and impact the world in a huge way. Today, nearly 130 years after the creation of the Tabulation Machine, Hollerith's legacy still lives on in one of the the world's largest information technology corporations.


Wiki Entry #2 Roberta Williams

A true innovator of her time, Roberta Williams is often seen as the “mother” of the adventure video game genre. The first woman to achieve success as a game designer and developer, she stood alone in an industry that was dominated by men. Born and raised in a small California town, she married her high-school sweetheart, Ken Williams, who would later become her partner in creating graphic adventure games. Together they first developed the first graphical game known as Mystery House. The game was a huge success. For video gamers, this was the first time many had seen such a phenomena. It was the first time an adventure game featured computer graphics. The game was such a huge success that Roberta Williams and her husband founded the company Sierra, which would eventually become a major publisher in the PC gaming industry.

The success of Mystery House brought on an additional eight more adventures, including The Wizard and the Princes, which became the first adventure game with colored graphics. Her distinguished ability to create one success after another lent her the opportunity to create a series that would forever make her famous. Requested by IBM, Roberta created King’s Quest, a 3D animated game that involved adventures of a royal family. Roberta’s goal was to recreate a child’s fantasy for adults to experience. The idea of fables and childhood stories was the true inspiration behind her eight series of the game.

Her success continued on as consumers continued to buy her Hi-Res Adventure games. As she continued on with the series of King’s Quest, she was given a $4 million budget to create a 7 CD-ROM horror game known as Phatasmagoria. When asked in interviews, Roberta stated that Phantasmagoria was her favorite game to work on and play because the challenges were like no other program she ever created. The game sold over a million copies. Roberta was unstoppable and it seemed as though the video gaming market was completely in her hands.

Roberta remained an active part of Sierra until 1996, when it was sold to CUC International. Although her company was sold, she continued on to make one final addition to the 3D King’s Quest series, called King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity. Although the game wasn’t as a huge success as the others of the series, Roberta won numerous awards and special tributes at the end of her career. In 1997, she was awarded the Roberta Williams Anthology for her work on the King’s Quest games. After nearly thirty years of creating and producing unstoppable video games, she is currently retired with her husband Ken Williams.

Roberta stands as a pinnacle not only in video gaming history, but also in women’s history. She thrived in a business dominated by men and is known as one of the most successful in her line of work. She revolutionized the video gaming world, and opened the world’s eyes to adventures and fantasies never seen before. Roberta pushed the envelope and expanded the minds of gamers by creating graphics and 3D pictures. She truly marked the “next step” in video games and technology. Up until her creations, people had only seen text-based games that lacked color, complexity, and availability. However, as the computer became more available to consumers, so did video games. She created imagination and complexity; she drew people into the future of excitement and fun. This being said, it is important to pay tribute to such an important leader and creator of what the world and the future will hold.


Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales, born August 7, 1966, is an American entrepreneur known for his creation of the internet website Wikipedia. Born and raised in a small town in Alabama, he attended The Randolph School, earning his bachelor's in finance, and gained and master's in finance at Auburn University ("Jimmy Wales Biography", 2006). After earning his education, he moved to Chicago where he worked as a options trader, earning enough money to eventually start his own internet company. He first began in 2000, with the creation of an online encyclopedia known as Nupedia. This site offered an opportunity for scholars and experts to create their own contribution to a free, online, encyclopedia. Nupedia's success ran short, and it turned out to be a slow and rather unsuccessful project.

Wales turned to his partner Larry Sanger, and in 2001, created Wikipedia through the use of wiki software. This new and improved site offered the opportunity for anyone to create and edit any page on Wikipedia's website ("Jimmy Wales Biography", 2006). The website saw unpredictable growth and was a huge success among internet users.

Works Cited (Roberta Williams)

"MobyGames - Roberta Williams." MobyGames - A Game Documentation and Review Project. Web. 12 June 2010. <http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,60/>.

Jong, Phillip. "Roberta Williams - Interview." Adventure Classic Gaming - ACG - Adventure Games, Interactive Fiction Games - Reviews, Interviews, Features, Previews, Cheats, Galleries, Forums. 16 July 2006. Web. 12 June 2010. <http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/198/>.

Sluganski, Randy. "Roberta Williams Speaks Out ..." Just Adventure - Reviews PC and PS2 Walkthroughs - Previews and Adventure News! Mar. 1999. Web. 12 June 2010. <http://www.justadventure.com/Interviews/Roberta_Williams/Roberta_Williams_Interview_3.shtm>.

Works Cited (Herman Hollerith)

Aul, William R. "IBM Archives: Herman Hollerith." IBM - United States.(Nov 1972). Web. 29 May 2010. <http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_hollerith.html>.

"History: Herman Hollerith." Census Bureau Home Page. Web. 29 May 2010. <http://www.census.gov/history/www/census_then_now/notable_alumni/herman_hollerith.html>.

Hollerith, Herman, "An Electric Tabulating System", The Quarterly, Columbia University School of Mines, Vol.X No.16 (Apr 1889), pp.238-255. Retrieved from <http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/hh/index.html>.29 May 2010.