A History of Information Technology and Systems

Four basic periodsCharacterized by a principal technology used to solve the input, processing, output and communication problems of the time:

1. Premechanical, 2. Mechanical, 3. Electromechanical, and 4. Electronic

A. The Premechanical Age: 3000 B.C. - 1450 A.D.

1. Writing and Alphabets--communication. 1. First humans communicated only through speaking and picture drawings. 2. 3000 B.C., the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (what is today southern Iraq) devised

cuniform 3. Around 2000 B.C., Phoenicians created symbols 4. The Greeks later adopted the Phoenician alphabet and added vowels; the Romans

gave the letters Latin names to create the alphabet we use today. 2. Paper and Pens--input technologies.

1. Sumerians' input technology was a stylus that could scratch marks in wet clay. 2. About 2600 B.C., the Egyptians write on the papyrus plant 3. around 100 A.D., the Chinese made paper from rags, on which modern-day

papermaking is based. 3. Books and Libraries: Permanent Storage Devices.

1. Religious leaders in Mesopotamia kept the earliest "books" 2. The Egyptians kept scrolls 3. Around 600 B.C., the Greeks began to fold sheets of papyrus vertically into leaves

and bind them together. 4. The First Numbering Systems.

1. Egyptian system: The numbers 1-9 as vertical lines, the number 10 as a U or circle, the

number 100 as a coiled rope, and the number 1,000 as a lotus blossom. 2. The first numbering systems similar to those in use today were invented between

100 and 200 A.D. by Hindus in India who created a nine-digit numbering system. 3. Around 875 A.D., the concept of zero was developed.

5. The First Calculators: The Abacus.

One of the very first information processors.

B. The Mechanical Age: 1450 - 1840

1. The First Information Explosion. 1. Johann Gutenberg (Mainz, Germany)

Invented the movable metal-type printing process in 1450. 2. The development of book indexes and the widespread use of page numbers.

2. The first general purpose "computers"

o Actually people who held the job title "computer: one who works with numbers." 3. Slide Rules, the Pascaline and Leibniz's Machine.

o Slide Rule.

Early 1600s, William Oughtred, an English clergyman, invented the slide rule Early example of an analog computer.

o The Pascaline. Invented by Blaise Pascal (1623-62).

The Pascaline (front)

(rear view)

Diagram of interior

One of the first mechanical computing machines, around 1642. o Leibniz's Machine.

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716), German mathematician and philosopher.

The Reckoner (reconstruction)

4. Babbage's EnginesCharles Babbage (1792-1871), eccentric English mathematician

o The Difference Engine.

Working model created in 1822. The "method of differences".

o The Analytical Engine.

Joseph Marie Jacquard's loom.

Designed during the 1830s

Parts remarkably similar to modern-day computers. The "store" The "mill" Punch cards.

Punch card idea picked up by Babbage from Joseph Marie Jacquard's (1752-1834) loom.

Introduced in 1801. Binary logic Fixed program that would operate in real time.

o Augusta Ada Byron (1815-52).

o The first programmer

C. The Electromechanical Age: 1840 - 1940.

The discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this period. Knowledge and information could now be converted into electrical impulses.

1. The Beginnings of Telecommunication.1. Voltaic Battery.

Late 18th century. 2. Telegraph.

Early 1800s. 3. Morse Code.

Developed in1835 by Samuel Morse Dots and dashes.

4. Telephone and Radio.

Alexander Graham Bell.

1876 5. Followed by the discovery that electrical waves travel through space and can

produce an effect far from the point at which they originated. 6. These two events led to the invention of the radio

Guglielmo Marconi 1894

2. Electromechanical Computing 1. Herman Hollerith and IBM.

Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) in 1880.

Census Machine.

Early punch cards.

Punch card workers.

By 1890 The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).

Its first logo

2. Mark 1.

Paper tape stored data and program instructions.

Howard Aiken, a Ph.D. student at Harvard University Built the Mark I

Completed January 1942 8 feet tall, 51 feet long, 2 feet thick, weighed 5 tons, used about

750,000 parts

D. The Electronic Age: 1940 - Present.

1. First Tries.

o Early 1940s o Electronic vacuum tubes.

2. Eckert and Mauchly.

1. The First High-Speed, General-Purpose Computer Using Vacuum Tubes:Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)The ENIAC team (Feb 14, 1946). Left to right: J. Presper Eckert, Jr.; John Grist Brainerd; Sam Feltman; Herman H. Goldstine; John W. Mauchly; Harold Pender; Major General G. L. Barnes; Colonel Paul N. Gillon.

Rear view (note vacuum tubes).

Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) 1946. Used vacuum tubes (not mechanical devices) to do its calculations.

Hence, first electronic computer.

Developers John Mauchly, a physicist, and J. Prosper Eckert, an electrical engineer

The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania

Funded by the U.S. Army. But it could not store its programs (its set of instructions)

2. The First Stored-Program Computer(s)

The Manchester University Mark I (prototype).

Early 1940s, Mauchly and Eckert began to design the EDVAC - the Electronic Discreet Variable Computer.

John von Neumann's influential report in June 1945: "The Report on the EDVAC"

British scientists used this report and outpaced the Americans. Max Newman headed up the effort at Manchester University

Where the Manchester Mark I went into operation in June 1948--becoming the first stored-program computer.

Maurice Wilkes, a British scientist at Cambridge University, completed the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) in 1949--two years before EDVAC was finished.

Thus, EDSAC became the first stored-program computer in general use (i.e., not a prototype).

3. The First General-Purpose Computer for Commercial Use: Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC).

UNIVAC publicity photo.

Late 1940s, Eckert and Mauchly began the development of a computer called UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer)

Remington Rand. First UNIVAC delivered to Census Bureau in 1951.

But, a machine called LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) went into action a few months before UNIVAC and became the world's first commercial computer.

3. The Four Generations of Digital Computing.

1. The First Generation (1951-1958).

1. Vacuum tubes as their main logic elements. 2. Punch cards to input and externally store data. 3. Rotating magnetic drums for internal storage of data and programs

Programs written in Machine language Assembly language

Requires a compiler. 2. The Second Generation (1959-1963).

1. Vacuum tubes replaced by transistors as main logic element.

AT&T's Bell Laboratories, in the 1940s Crystalline mineral materials called semiconductors could be used

in the design of a device called a transistor

2. Magnetic tape and disks began to replace punched cards as external storage devices.

3. Magnetic cores (very small donut-shaped magnets that could be polarized in one of two directions to represent data) strung on wire within the computer became the primary internal storage technology.

High-level programming languages E.g., FORTRAN and COBOL

3. The Third Generation (1964-1979).

1. Individual transistors were replaced by integrated circuits. 2. Magnetic tape and disks completely replace punch cards as external

storage devices. 3. Magnetic core internal memories began to give way to a new form, metal

oxide semiconductor (MOS) memory, which, like integrated circuits, used silicon-backed chips.

Operating systems Advanced programming languages like BASIC developed.

Which is where Bill Gates and Microsoft got their start in 1975.

4. The Fourth Generation (1979- Present). 1. Large-scale and very large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs and VLSICs)

2. Microprocessors that contained memory, logic, and control circuits (an entire CPU = Central Processing Unit) on a single chip.

Which allowed for home-use personal computers or PCs, like the Apple (II and Mac) and IBM PC.

Apple II released to public in 1977, by Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs.

Initially sold for $1,195 (without a monitor); had 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, Microsoft Word, and

many others. Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) for PCs arrive in early

1980s

MS Windows debuts in 1983, but is quite a clunker.

Windows wouldn't take off until version 3 was released in 1990

Apple's GUI (on the first Mac) debuts in 1984.

Bibliography

1. Kenneth C. Laudon, Carol Guercio Traver, Jane P. Laudon, Information Technology and Systems, Cambridge, MA: Course Technology, 1996.

2. Stan Augarten, BIT By BIT: An Illustrated History of Computers (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1984).

3. R. Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware, and the Software, translated by J. Howlett (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984).

4. Telephone History Web Site. http://www.cybercomm.net/~chuck/phones.html, accessed 1998.

5. Microsoft Museum. http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/museum/home.asp, accessed 1998.

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 the time between 3000B.C. and 1450A.D. We are talking about a long time ago. When humans first started communicating they would try to use language or simple picture drawings known as petroglyths which were usually carved in rock. Early alphabets were developed such as the Phoenician alphabet.

Petroglyph

As alphabets became more popluar 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 created out of papyrus plant. The most popular kind of paper made was probably by the Chinese who made 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. Some groups 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 and its 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 using the method of finite differences.

Difference Engine

There were lots of different machines created during this era and while we have not yet gottent 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 thse 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 the beginnings of telecommunication. The telegraph was created in the early 1800s. Morse code was created 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 by Harvard University around 1940. This computer was 8ft high, 50ft long, 2ft wide, and weighed 5 tons - 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 andeventually in your own home.

Harvard Mark 1

Electronic

The electronic age is wha 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 be used by the U.S. Army for artillery firing tables. This machine was even bigger than the Mark 1 taking 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 comptuer was developed (Apple II). The graphical user interface (GUI) was developed.

Apple 2

There is a lot more to all of these generations and ages but all you really need is a rough overview.

Exercises

Worksheets

Define key terms

Labs

Current Technologies Project Create a timeline

References

Wikipedia - Slide Rule University of Alabama - Information Technology History - Outline Wikipedia - Pascaline Wikipedia - Difference Engine Wikipedia - Telephone Wikipedia - Radio Wikipedia - Harvard Mark 1 Wikipedia - ENIAC Wikipedia - Petroglyph

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