CSIT123 Computing and Cyber

Security Fundamentals
Week 1: History of Computing and ICT
Dr. Huseyin Hisil and Dr. Xueqiao Liu
Overview
● What is ICT about?
● The history and development of ICT
ICT
● ICT is an acronym that stands for Information and
Communications Technology.
● ICT evolution timeline is divided into four basic periods:
• The Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. - 1450 A.D.)
• The Mechanical Age (1450 - 1840)
• The Electromechanical Age (1840-1940)
• The Electronic Age (1940 - Present)
The Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. - 1450 A.D.)
● Communication - Writing and Alphabets
• 3000 B.C., the Sumerians devised their writing system - cuneiform
• 2000 B.C., Phoenicians created symbols
• The Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet and added vowels
• The Romans gave letters Latin names to create the alphabet used today

Phoenician writing

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform, https://www.britannica.com/place/Phoenicia

The Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. - 1450 A.D.)

● Input technologies - Paper and Pens

• 2600 B.C., the Egyptians write on the papyrus plant
• 100 A.D., the Chinese made paper from rags, on which modern papermaking is
based

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus, https://angelicscalliwagshomeschool.com/ancient-china-han-dynasty-the-invention-of-paper/

The Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. - 1450 A.D.)
● Permanent Storage - Books and Libraries
• Religious leaders in Mesopotamia kept the earliest “books”
• The Egyptians kept scrolls
• 600 B.C., the Greeks folded papyrus sheets vertically into leaves and bind them
together

Image Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/egyptian-scrolls-reveal-hangover-cure, https://libwww.freelibrary.org/digital/item/57905

The Pre-mechanical Age (3000 B.C. - 1450 A.D.)
● The First Numbering Systems: Egyptian System
• 1-9 as vertical lines, 10 as a U or circle, 100 as a coiled rope, and 1,000 as a lotus
blossom, similar to today’s nine-digit numbering system invented between 100 and
200 A.D. by Hindus in India. Around 875 A.D., the concept of zero was developed.
● The First Calculators: The Abacus
• One of the very first information processors.

Image Source: https://www.sutori.com/en/story/periods-of-i-c-t-evolution--oUoGcuxkkdG54i9eLNTLBGXH

The Mechanical Age (1450 - 1840)
● The First Information Explosion
• Johann Gutenberg (Mainz, Germany) invented the movable metal-type printing
process in 1450.

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg

 The Mechanical Age (1450 - 1840)
● The Slide Rule, Pascaline and Leibniz's Machine
• William Oughtred (1574 - 1660) designed Slide Rule, an analog computer (1600s).
• Pascal's calculator (Arithmetic Machine or Pascaline) is a mechanical
calculator invented by Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) in 1642.
• The Stepped Reckoner or Leibniz calculator was a mechanical calculator invented by
the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - 1716) around 1672 and completed in 1694.

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_rule, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepped_reckoner

The Mechanical Age (1450 - 1840)
● Babbage's Engines
• Charles Babbage (1792-1871), eccentric English mathematician invented the
Difference Engine using “the method of differences” in 1822.
• He later created the Analytical Engine.

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine

The Mechanical Age (1450 - 1840)
● The First General Purpose Computer and Programmer
• Augusta Lady Byron (1815-52) wrote the first computer program to work with
Analytical Engine. It enables to enter data, process data, and generate output in the
form of a card, is more mechanical than is digital, and is 94 years before the ENIAC.

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_Engine, https://www.sutori.com/en/story/periods-of-i-c-t-evolution--oUoGcuxkkdG54i9eLNTLBGXH

 The Electromechanical Age (1840 - 1940)
● The Beginnings of Telecommunication
• Voltaic Battery (late 18th century).
• Telegraph (early 1800s).
• Morse Code (developed in 1835 by Samuel Morse using dots and dashes).
• Telephone (Alexander Graham Bell, 1876)
• Radio (Guglielmo Marconi, 1894).

Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaic_pile, https://www.easytechjunkie.com/what-is-a-telegraph.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code

The Electromechanical Age (1840 - 1940)
● Electromechanical Computing
• Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), father of modern machine data processing.
Hollerith's company merged with two other firms to form the IBM in 1911.
• He worked for Census Office in 1880 and developed the Census machine.
• He invented and installed the Punch Card Tabulating Machine in 1888.
• Harvard developed the first large-scale automatic digital computer around 1940.

Image Source: https://www.sutori.com/en/story/periods-of-i-c-t-evolution--oUoGcuxkkdG54i9eLNTLBGXH

The Electronic Age: (1940 - Present)
• The First High-Speed, General-Purpose Computer
• Was funded by the U.S. Army, developed by John Mauchly, a physicist, and J.
Prosper Eckert, an electrical engineer at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Uses Vacuum Tubes, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) in 1946.
• Could not store programs (its set of instructions).

Image Source: https://www.sutori.com/en/story/periods-of-i-c-t-evolution--oUoGcuxkkdG54i9eLNTLBGXH

The Electronic Age: (1940 - Present)
• The First General-Purpose Computer for Commercial Use
• Eckert and Mauchly began developing a the Universal Automatic Computer
(UNIVAC) in late 1940s. The first UNIVAC was delivered to Census Bureau in 1951.
• A machine called LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) went into action a few months
before UNIVAC and became the world's first commercial computer.

Image Source: https://www.sutori.com/en/story/periods-of-i-c-t-evolution--oUoGcuxkkdG54i9eLNTLBGXH

The Electronic Age: (1940 - Present)
• The Four Generations of Digital Computing
• The First Generation (1951 - 1958)
•Vacuum tubes as main logic elements.
•Punch cards to input and externally store data.
•Rotating magnetic drums for internal storage of data and programs.
•Programs written in Machine language. Assembly language Requires a compiler.
The Electronic Age: (1940 - Present)
• The Four Generations of Digital Computing
• The Second Generation (1959 - 1963)
•Vacuum tubes replaced by transistors. Crystalline mineral materials
(semiconductors) can be used in a transistor.
•Magnetic tape and disks began to replace punched cards as external storage
devices.
•Magnetic cores strung on wire became primary internal storage. High-level
programming languages, e.g., FORTRAN and COBOL.
The Electronic Age: (1940 - Present)
• The Four Generations of Digital Computing
• The Third Generation (1964 - 1979)
•Individual transistors were replaced by integrated circuits.
•Magnetic tape and disks completely replaced punch cards as external storage
device.
•Magnetic core internal memories gave way to metal oxide semiconductor memory,
like integrated circuits used silicon-backed chips.
•Advanced programming languages like BASIC was developed. Which is where Bill
Gates and Microsoft started their OS in 1975.
The Electronic Age: (1940 - Present)
• The Four Generations of Digital Computing
• The Fourth Generation (1979 - Present)
•Advanced programming languages like BASIC was developed. Large-scale and very large-
scale integrated circuits (LSIs and VLSICs).
•Microprocessors that contained memory, logic, and control circuits (an entire CPU) on a
single chip, allowing PCs, like the Apple (II and Mac) and IBM PC.
•Apple II released by Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs in 1977, $1,195,16k RAM. First
Apple Mac released in 1984. IBM PC introduced in 1981. Debuts with MS-DOS (Microsoft
Disk Operating System).
•Fourth generation language software products, e.g., Visicalc, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase, and
Microsoft Word.
•Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) arrived in early 1980s, Windows debuts in 1983. Windows
version 3 released in 1990 started taking off.
Reference
● PERIODS OF I.C.T EVOLUTION, RJ Rosadia, https://www.sutori.com/en/story/periods-
of-i-c-t-evolution--oUoGcuxkkdG54i9eLNTLBGXH
● THE HISTORY OF ICT, Philippine Christian University, available from
https://www.slideshare.net/mentosrenz27/historical-background-of-ict