WORDS Ciaran McGrath
Communicating with our computers is an old problem. We just don’t speak the same language. Like all troubled couples though, we’ve developed ways of coping. The input devices that we use to get computers to understand what we want have changed a lot over the years. Where once we lived in a world of keyboards and mice, we now have touchscreens and motion sensors, and we may just end up watching the Nerdpocalypse through a pair of Google Glasses.
Punch Cards: Where It All Began
In the 1800s, Charles Babbage planned to build a steam-powered mechanical computer, the “Analytical Engine”. Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer, designed punchcards to control it.
Sadly, punchcards languished until the 20th century and the first great era of digital computing. This was the era of computers that filled whole rooms. However, while computers could understand punchcards, only one in a million humans could do the same.
Keyboards: Buttons, Buttons Everywhere . . .
Everyone likes to push buttons. Especially large red ones with “Danger!” signs nearby. From remote controls to videogame controllers, there’s something very satisfying about physically making something happen. That simple one-dimensional action is is one way of communicating with machines that anyone can understand.
Keyboards are the ultimate form of push-button computer control. An evolution of the faithful typewriter, they combined the simple act of pressing a button with the natural language we spend our lives using. Computers had been dragged a little way out of the binary cave, and the keyboard remains with us after half a century.
Mice: Point Before You Click
Early arcade games tried various weird controllers before settling on the joystick. All of a sudden, our body movements appeared on screen. Computer manufacturers took a bit longer to catch on, but when they did we got another breakthrough: the mouse.
The trackball first appeared in 1953, but It was another decade before someone flipped it and created the mouse itself. A perfect fit for graphical user interfaces, mice were soon everywhere. Trackballs lingered in laptops before another emerging technology pushed them out: the trackpad.
Every Sense in the Book
The trackpad was a mere stepping stone to the touchscreen. Tablet computers form windows into an electronic universe, and a new generation of toddlers are growing up knowing how to swipe and zoom.
It’s not just touch either. Computers can listen and do what we tell them, though turning speech into text is still tricky. They can even watch us: this is a world with a motion-sensitive CCTV on every street corner, a Kinect in every living room and a camera on every phone and laptop.
Computers can see, hear, and feel, and if you’ve come face-to-face with a breathalyser, then you’ve seen a computer that tastes and smells. Computers have even more senses though, courtesy of GPS chips and gyroscopic sensors.
The Future?
As computers dissolve into our surroundings, our clothes and even our bodies, their ability to pay attention to what we’re up to will keep growing. The question you might ask is not how to get them to pay attention but how to get them to stop . . .
