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Mainframe
A large central computer. The term is usually used to refer to the giant machines used by large corporations and government agencies in the 1950s and 60s.
Man-Computer Symbiosis
Paper: "Man-Computer Symbiosis"
Author: J. C. R. Licklider
Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider was a psychologist interested in how humans interacted with machines — and in how humans could use machines to interact with each other. In his work on SAGE and at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), "Lick" encouraged people to think of computers as tools for communication and collaboration.
Marvel, Mary
A costumed comic book super-heroine of the 1940s. Like her brother Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel acquired super powers by shouting the magical word, SHAZAM. When not performing super deeds, she was Mary Batson, an orphan who worked during wartime as a telegraph messenger.
MEDLARS (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System)
A computerized medical bibliographic system created by the National Library of Medicine in 1964 to replace the printed Index Catalogue. By 1973, users could dial in to search the MEDLARS database via the online service MEDLINE.
MedlinePlus
A Web-based service of the National Library of Medicine, providing both physicians and the public with access to information about specific diseases and conditions as well as links to consumer health information from the National Institutes of Health, medical dictionaries, lists of hospitals and physicians, health information in Spanish and other languages, and information about clinical trials.
Merit Corporation
Nonprofit corporation hired by the National Science Foundation to build and administer the NSFNet.
Metcalfe, Robert (1946- )
Computer scientist and engineer who developed Ethernet, the basic technology used to link computers into local area networks.
Microprocessor
An integrated circuit or "chip" that contains both instructions and data, first invented in 1971 by Ted Hoff of the Intel Corporation. Often called a "computer on a chip" or the "brains" of a computer because it controls the computer's operations and executes its central functions. A Pentium chip is an example of a microprocessor.
Minicomputers
A new generation of computers built in the late 1960s and 1970s using integrated circuits. Minicomputers were smaller and less expensive than the giant mainframe computers of the day but were comparatively fast and powerful. Many of the first computers connected to the ARPANET were minicomputers.
Modem
A device used to connect computers to telephone lines so that they can transmit and receive information electronically. The word "modem" comes from "modulator-demodulator."
Moore's Law
Prediction made by computer scientist Gordon Moore (co-founder of the Intel Corporation) that computing power would double every 18-24 months in the future, just as it had during the 1950s and 1960s.
Morino, Mario (1943- )
Businessman and philanthropist who ran a very successful software firm before creating the Morino Institute, a center for the study of how the Internet can be used to advance social change.
Morse Code
A system for representing letters of the alphabet, numerals, and punctuation marks by dots, dashes, and spaces; invented by Samuel F. B. Morse in the 1830s for use with his electrical telegraph, and further improved by Alfred Vail, Morse's assistant and partner. The code can be transmitted as electrical pulses of varied lengths or as mechanical or visual signals, such as taps or flashing lights. After its introduction in Europe, an international version, called Continental or International Morse Code, was prepared for the transmission of non-English text, since the original version lacked codes for letters with diacritic marks. The 1851 conference that devised International Morse Code, also made the system easier to operate by substituting spaces and dashes of constant length for the variable length spaces and dashes used in American Code.
Morse Telegraph
An electrical communications device originally conceived and developed by Samuel F. B. Morse in the 1830s and 1840s, in its simplest form consisting of a transmitting apparatus or key, an electromagnetic receiver, and a battery connected by wires. The Morse apparatus used dots, dashes and spaces to encode messages for transmission (see Morse Code).
Morse, Samuel F. B. (1791-1872)
American painter and inventor; inventor of an electromagnetic telegraph and Morse Code.
Mosaic
The first widely used browser for the World Wide Web, developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 1992-93. The developers of Mosaic began their own business in 1993, changing the program's name to Netscape in 1994.
MP3
Format for encoding music in a compressed digital form. (MP3 is an abbreviation for Motion Picture Experts Group 1, Layer 3)
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