Geek History! | The history of technology

What is a Geek?

So what is a Geek? Much like a "guru," a spiritual leader and teacher, I see true technology geeks as leaders and teachers.

Geeks are the folks that work on the open source code browsers at mozilla.org. Geeks are the folks that work on learning and perfecting other open source code products like Linux and Apache Web server. Geeks are really folks who do it for the "love of the game."

I learned BASIC back in 1975. (BASIC is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.) The first computer I personally owned was a Commodore VIC-20, sometime around 1981. I've been told that makes me a Geek.

Inspired by the fact that I have been asked many times about the history of various technology topics I've decided to make the time to share some thoughts on the roots of the technology we all now take for granted.

In The Beginning...

Before Computers
An invention involves more than just the conception of a plan, more than mere speculation on paper. This is where many disputes are waged over the answer to the question of Who invented the "whatever."

Many claims to inventions have been made strictly on the illustration of a theory on paper, but it also involves the building and demonstration of a prototype. In many cases when the question is answered as to who invented something, it is not the individual was first person to theorize or document a product or process, but it is often based on the the first person to patent the item and whose company was the first to bring that item to the marketplace.

In the case with common everyday pieces of technology that we take for granted, such as the telephone, and the television, there were two or more individuals working towards an invention at the same time.

Welcome to Geek History

Geek History My lifelong love of history and technology comes together at GeekHistory.com, a project that I have had rattling inside my brain for many years.

I am fascinated by the origins of things. I am also fascinated by how little the average person knows about history, not just political history, but the history of everyday things.

There are so many urban legends and so much folk lore surrounding the internet. I have read so many articles where the history of the internet is so mangled.

Technology Inventions: Who invented what?

One of the biggest misconceptions of any type of history is when a single person is credited for a discovery we often fail to realize that the discovery was not the work of a single person done in a void of any outside influence. Many times the person given credit for an invention is one of a number of persons who can easily be credited for the invention.

What is a Geek?

In The Beginning...

Welcome to Geek History

Technology History

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