The Joy of Computer History Books
A broader, tangential question: Can you give me feedback on this table I generated (with AI) for thinking about computing history? For context, I am a fullstack software dev of the younger variety and 3 years of experience. The table has long lines and looks a bit unwieldy due to lack of scrolling, I looks nicer in an editor :)<p>- Am I correct in that the Personal Computer Era is the most foundational period when it comes to stuff that I use today? I feel that if a fairy would appear and grant one the possibility of knowing two periods by heart instantly, it would be the Personal Computer Era and the Internet Era.<p>- How do you think about computing? What lessons are there to learn from the past?<p>- Other thoughts?<p>Much appreciated!<p><pre><code>  | Period                         | Years                  | Description                        | Technological Advancements      | Impact on Society        | Computing Paradigms         | Software &amp; Programming         |
  |--------------------------------|------------------------|------------------------------------|---------------------------------|--------------------------|----------------------------|--------------------------------|
  | Mechanical Computing           | 17th century - 19th century | Early mechanical devices           | Pascaline, Stepped Reckoner, Analytical Engine | Pioneering era          | Mechanical computing     | Pre-programming era           |
  | Electromechanical Computing    | 1930s - 1940s          | Relay-based machines               | Complex Number Calculator, Harvard Mark I, Z3 |                        | Analog computing         |                              |
  | Electronic Computing           | 1940s - 1950s          | Early electronic computers         | ENIAC, Manchester Mark 1, EDSAC, EDVAC | Mainframe era        | Digital computing        | Assembly &amp; early programming languages |
  | Transistor Era                 | 1950s - 1960s          | Transistor-based computers         | IBM 700 series, DEC PDP series  | Minicomputer era      | Digital computing (2nd generation) | High-level programming languages |
  | Integrated Circuit Era         | 1960s - 1970s          | Microprocessors, integrated circuits | Intel 4004, 8008, FORTRAN, COBOL, BASIC | Personal computer era | Digital computing (3rd generation) | Object-oriented programming |
  | Personal Computer Era          | 1970s - 1990s          | Personal computers, GUIs           | Apple I &amp; II, IBM PC, Commodore 64, Macintosh, Windows | Networked computing era | Digital computing (4th generation) | Web &amp; scripting languages |
  | Internet Era                   | 1990s - present        | World Wide Web, internet-based technologies | Web browsers, search engines, e-commerce, social media | Mobile &amp; ubiquitous computing era |                      | Mobile &amp; platform-specific languages |
  | Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing Era | 2000s - present   | Smartphones, tablets, IoT devices  | iPhone, Android, IoT devices   | Cloud computing &amp; AI era | Quantum computing       | Domain-specific languages &amp; frameworks |</code></pre>