From Zuse to the M1 Chip: The importance of the laptop in our times
We can consider the Treaty of Paris, together with the Treaty of Versailles and the Geneva Convention, as one of the most important agreements in the history of our time. After the Second World War, populations have built, with hard effort, a state of peace and prosperity thanks to the economy, intellectual property, and assisted social and economic experiments. All of this with the evolution of technology came an explosion of invention, optimization and data processing. From the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer) capable of performing an operation in 15 seconds to the 5 nm transistors of the M1 APPLE whose distance between its components (Source-Drain) we calculate in atoms (1).
In the last 77 years, we have witnessed and participated in the most explosive period in the short history of homo sapiens on this planet. Geographical, cultural and ethnic contrasts have brought the human population this today: a time of complexity, diversity and detail, as never before recorded. Every detail, every analysis, every methodology, production, supply chain and systems in a broader sense are the most sophisticated ever conceived.
The computer, symbol of our times, has accelerated the improvement of all processes, all systems and all populations. It is the object of modernity. As early as 1941, Konrad Zuse had created the Z3, the first programmable electromechanical computer: it had a monitor, a keyboard and even a flat screen. Turing also created a fully programmable digital computer, the Colossus, in 1943. At the same time, "The Giant Brian" was being designed in the USA, and in 1945 its first task was to perform the calculations for the launch of the hydrogen bomb. These calculations took about 20 seconds, while a mechanical computer (like Zuse's) would have taken about 40 hours to perform the same process.