Introduction to Information and Computer Technology

History Of Information Technology

Introduction

Information technology has been around for a long, long time. Basically as long as people
have been around, information technology has been around because there were always
ways of communicating through technology available at that point in time. There are 4 main
ages that divide up the history of information technology. Only the latest age (electronic) and
some of the electromechanical age really affects us today, but it is important to learn about
how we got to the point we are at with technology today

Ages

Premechanical

The Premechanical age is the earliest age of information technology. It can be defined as

Petroglyph

As alphabets became more popular and more people were writing information down, pens
and paper began to be developed. It started off as just marks in wet clay, but later paper was
createdout of papyrus plant. The most popular kind of paper made was probably by the
Chinese whomade paper from rags. Now that people were writing a lot of information down
they needed ways to keep it all in

 permanent storage. This is where the first books and libraries are developed. You’ve
probably

heard of Egyptian scrolls which were popular ways of writing down information to
save. Somegroups of people were actually binding paper together into a book-like form.Also
during this period were the first numbering systems. Around 100A.D. was when the first 1-9
system was created by people from India. However, it wasn’t until 875A.D. (775 years later)

that the number 0 was invented. And yes now that numbers were created, people wanted
stuff to do with them so they created calculators. A calculator was the very first sign of
an information processor. The popular model of that time was the abacus.

Mechanical

The mechanical age is when we first start to see connections between our current
technology andits ancestors. The mechanical age can be defined as the time between 1450
and 1840. A lot of new technologies are developed in this era as there is a large explosion in
interest with this area. Technologies like the slide rule (an analog computer used for
multiplying and dividing) were invented. Blaise Pascal invented the Pascaline which was a
very popular mechanical computer.

Charles Babbage developed the difference engine which tabulated polynomial equations
usingthe method of finite differences. Difference Engine There were lots of different
machines created during this era and while we have not yet gotten to a machine that can do
more than one type of calculation in one, like our modern-day calculators, we are still
learning about how all of our all-in-one machines started. Also, if you look at the size of the
machines invented in this time compared to the power behind them it seems (to
us)absolutely ridiculous to understand why anybody would want to use them, but to the
people living in that time ALL of these inventions were HUGE.

Electromechanical

Now we are finally getting close to some technologies that resemble our modern-day
technology.The electromechanical age can be defined as the time between 1840 and 1940.
These are thebeginnings of telecommunication. The telegraph was created in the early
1800s. Morse code wascreated by Samuel Morse in 1835. The telephone (one of the most
popular forms of communication ever) was created by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
The first radio developed by Guglielmo Marconi in 1894. All of these were extremely crucial
emerging technologies that led to big advances in the information technology field.

The first large-scale automatic digital computer in the United States was the Mark 1 created
byHarvard University around 1940. This computer was 8ft high, 50ft long, 2ft wide,
and weighed 5tons - HUGE. It was programmed using punch cards. How does your PC
match up to this hunk of metal? It was from huge machines like this that people began to
look at downsizing all the parts to first make them usable by businesses and eventually in
your own home. Harvard Mark 1

Electronic

The electronic age is what we currently live in. It can be defined as the time between 1940
and right now. The ENIAC was the first high-speed, digital computer capable of being
reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. This computer was designed
to beused by the U.S. Army for artillery firing tables. This machine was even bigger than
the Mark 1taking up 680 square feet and weighing 30 tons - HUGE. It mainly used vacuum
tubes to do its calculations. There are 4 main sections of digital computing. The first was the
era of vacuum tubes and punch cards like the ENIAC and Mark 1. Rotating magnetic drums
were used for internal storage. The second generation replaced vacuum tubes with
transistors, punch cards were replaced with magnetic tape, and rotating magnetic drums
were replaced by magnetic cores for internal storage. Also during this time high-level
programming languages were created such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The third
generation replaced transistors with integrated circuits, magnetic tape was used throughout
all computers, and magnetic core turned into metal oxide semiconductors. An actual
operating system showed up around this time along with the advanced programming
language BASIC. The fourth and latest generation brought in CPUs (central processing
units) which contained memory, logic, and control circuits all on a single chip. The personal
computer was developed (Apple II). The graphical user interface (GUI) was developed.
Parts of the Computer