CMSC 150 - Fall 2017 - System.out.print("Output")

A mildly unrealistic view of what happens to you in VR. (6) Picture this: humans of the future, living in an ideal world without conflict or reason for fear, perhaps with superhuman abilities or infinite lives. This future may be possible far sooner than you might imagine, and it's all thanks to one technology: virtual reality. Virtual reality, or VR, is defined by Merriam-Webster as, " an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (such as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment" (1). The big plastic boxes attached to people's heads have not always been the case, however. Let's take a look at where VR came from. The Past Okay, so that may have been a lie. In fact, plastic boxes mounted to the face have pretty much been the standard for VR since the beginning. While the exact origin of VR is disputed, an early ancestor of the technology was the &

(7) There is an entirely different form of computer output that this blog has yet to touch: audio, as opposed to visual. The computer has had less of a prominent relationship with our ears as it has with our eyes, but it has still opened up a world of opportunity for the audio market. History The first speaker, which converts an audio signal to sound, was likely invented by Johann Philipp Reis in 1861 (1), but Altec Lansing claims responsibility for the modern computer speaker. Regardless of the history of it, speakers pushed their technology upon computers, unlike displays which evolved cables and ports as computers increased the amount of available output volume. Speakers generally require a power source, and information source (usually a headphone jack), and the speakers themselves: usually a vibrating metal diaphragm (3). Current: Headphones, Speakers, and More Computers can output sound in a vast array of ways today, usually through headphones or standalone speakers.

No one breakthrough has allowed for such a diverse array of physical creations in the way that printers have. Printers, like the previously discussed displays, are generally peripheral devices that create physical manifestations of computer information and data (1). However, they have a history deeper than the simple nature of taking a screen and putting it on paper would suggest The Past A replica difference engine (10) While it can be argued that the history of the printer lies in the typewriter, for this blog's purpose we look to Charles Babbage's design for the difference engine as the first direct ancestor of today's HP DeskJet. While the design of this device laid the groundwork for much of what we consider modern computers, it was the first device to output a physical product on paper (2). Since then the technology has rapidly advanced; the first electronic printer debuted in 1968 (3), and household versions came soon after. The Present A typical in

Displays are the primary output device that most consumers tend to interact with, and therefore tend to have the most attention of the average consumer. A display is defined as " an output device that visually conveys text, graphics, and video information." 1 For most intents and purposes, displays are screens. However, they weren't always the razor-thin panels that today's laptops, TVs, and smartphones have, and they won't always be, either. The Past: CRT While rudimentary display technology existed before the cathode ray tube (CRT) screen, no other display technology advanced the field nearly so much as the CRT did. While the roots of the CRT were planted in the mid-1800s, they came into their prime when the television was invented and became widely available, and progressed into a computer peripheral in the early days of the personal computer. According to ThoughtCo, "a cathode ray tube is a specialized vacuum tube in which images are produced when an