Over time I have been changed quite a lot. I began as a calculating machine in France in 1642.
Although I was young I could simplify difficult sums. I developed very slowly and it took nearly
two hundred years before I was built as an analytical machine by Charles Babbage. After I was
programmed by an operator who used cards with holes, I could "think" logically and produce an
answer quicker than any person. At that time it was considered a technological revolution and
the start of my "artificial intelligence". In 1936 my real father, Alan Turing, wrote a book
about how I could be made to work as a "universal machine" to solve any difficult mathematical
problem. From then on, I grew rapidly both in size and in brainpower. By the 1940s I had grown
as large as a room, and I wondered if I would grow any larger. However, this reality also
worried my designers. As time went by, I was made smaller. First as a PC (personal computer)
and then as a laptop, I have been used in offices and homes since the 1970s.
These changes only became possible as my memory improved. First it was stored in tubes,
then on transistors and later on very small chips. As a result I totally changed my shape.
As I have grown older I have also grown smaller. Over time my memory has developed so much
that, like an elephant, I never forget anything I have been told! And my memory became so
large that even I couldn't believe it! But I was always so lonely standing there by myself,
until in the early 1960s they gave me a family connected by a network. I was able to share my
knowledge with others through the World Wide Web.
Since the 1970s many new applications have been found for me. I have become very important in
communication, finance and trade. I have also been put into robots and used to make mobile phones
as well as help with medical operations. I have even been put into space rockets and sent to
explore the Moon and Mars. Anyhow, my goal is to provide humans with a life of high quality. I
am now truly filled with happiness that I am a devoted friend and helper of the human race!