What is real about Digital Technology?

Suppose I measure something and send a message "This is one meter high!" What have I done?

I have made a measurement and transmitted the length of that measurement. Nothing more or less.

At one time, measuring the distance around Africa was just such a problem. People thought this information might be valuable, but they could not be sure. Even after making the measurement they could not be sure, they had to know what was at these exotic destinations.

Digital technology was the same, they had measurements but nothing else, Imagine their surprise when they learned this was valuable in itself! It didn't seem right. There was no demand for Computer engineers.

I can remember when this happened, back in the Fifties. I was an Electronic Engineering student at the U of Illinois. Digital Computers had been invented, but the Engineering Department did not think they were much good.

They taught a course in analog computing because they measured real stuff: voltage and current. Measuring what people wanted was measuring something that did not exist.

Gradually, they realized this was something also, even if they did not know what it was, It took them 500 years to know something they knew already - what people wanted was important!

And was available at their nearest shopping center.