8 parts · 8 chapters
A History of Computing
Where the tools in every other Learna course came from, from the abacus to large language models. Knowing why Unix has pipes, why the web has URLs and why a byte has eight bits makes the rest of the curriculum make sense.
Eight parts: calculation before computers; Babbage, Lovelace and Turing; the wartime machines (Colossus, ENIAC) and the stored-program idea; mainframes and minicomputers; Unix and C; the personal computer; the internet and the web; and mobile, cloud and AI, including how they arrived in Africa.
beforeAbacus, logarithms, mechanical calculators, punched cards.
theoryBabbage's engines, Lovelace's notes, Turing's machine.
warCodebreaking and ballistics produce the first computers.
industryIBM mainframes, DEC minicomputers, time-sharing.
softwareUnix, C, the PC, open source.
networksARPANET, TCP/IP, the web, mobile, cloud and AI.
00
Calculation Before Computers
People, gears and cards
1 ch · ~8 min01Babbage, Lovelace, Turing
Ideas a century ahead of the hardware
1 ch · ~8 min02The War Machines
From codebreaking to stored programs
1 ch · ~8 min03Mainframes and Minicomputers
Computing becomes an industry
1 ch · ~8 min04Unix and C
Small tools, portable code
1 ch · ~8 min05The Personal Computer
Computers for individuals
1 ch · ~8 min06The Internet and the Web
A network of networks
1 ch · ~8 min07Mobile, Cloud and AI
The present, as history
1 ch · ~8 minTies the curriculum togetherEach part points to the Learna course that teaches the technology in depth (C, Unix, Networks, OS, Compilers, LLMs).