GEL 1: History of IT

• 4 Main Periods in IT

  • Pre-mechanical Age

  • Mechanical Age

  • Electromechanical Age

  • Electronic Age
• Computer Generations


  • First Generation (1946-1959)
  • Second Generation (1959-1965)
  • Third Generation (1965-1971)
  • Fourth Generation (1971-1980)
  • Fifth Generation (1980 – onwards)
• First Generation (1946-1959)


  • Computers used the VACUUM TUBE or THERMIONIC VALVE
  • Input was based on punched cards, magnetic tape, and paper tape; output was displayed on printouts
  • Computers worked on binary-coded concept or the so-called machine language (i.e. language of 0-1)
• Second Generation (1959-1965)


  • Computers used TRANSISTOR TECHNOLOGY
  • Size was smaller, computing time was lesser
  • Magnetic tape and magnetic disks were used as secondary storage devices
  • COBOL, FORTRAN languages were used
  • Computer used multi-programming operating system
• Third Generation (1965-1971)


  • Computers used the INTEGRATED CIRCUIT (IC) TECHNOLOGY
  • Size was small, computing time was lesser, consumed less power, generated less heat, maintenance cost was low
  • Peripherals were the same with the second generation, reel to-reel tape for mainframes for long data storage
  • Computers for commercial use
  • High-level languages (FORTRAN-II TO IV, COBOL, PASCAL PL/1, BASIC, ALGOL-68 etc.) were used
• Fourth Generation (1971-1980)


  • Computers used MICROPROCESSOR TECHNOLOGY
  • Computers were very small in size, portable, generates very low amount of heat, fast and reliable, affordable that gives rise to Personal Computer (PC) revolution
  • Computers became available for the common people
  • Time sharing, real time networks, distributed operating system were used
  • All the high-level languages like C, C++, DBASE etc., were used in this generation
• Fifth Generation (1980 – onwards)


  • Includes hardware and software
  • Computers had high capability and large memory capability, fast, and performed multiple tasks simultaneously
  • VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integration) technology became ULSI (Ultra Large-Scale Integration) technology, resulting in the production of microprocessor chips having ten million electronic components
  • This includes Artificial Intelligence (AI), Quantum Computation, Nanotechnology, Parallel Processing, etc.
  • All the high-level languages like C and C++, Java, .Net etc., are used in this generation
• Pre- Mechanical Age (3000B.C. - 1450 A.D

  • Petroglyphs (signs or simple figures carved in rock)
  • IdeoGraphs (symbols to represent ideas and concept)
  • Cuneiform - first true written language and the first real info system
  • Star - Heaven or God

  Around 2000Bc Phoenicians created symbols that expressed single sylabbles and consonant

  Greek added vowels

  Roman Gave the letters latin name to create alphabet

  
  

  Papers and Pens

  • Sumerians - (stylus and wet clay)
  • Egyptians - papyrus Plants
  • Chinese - made paper from rags
• Pre - Mechanical Age

  Books and Libraries (storage devices)

  • Mesopotamia - religious leaders kept the earliest book
  • Egyptians -Kept Scrolls
  • Greeks - fold sheets of papyrus vertically into leaves and bind them together

  Abacus The First Calculator
• Mechanical Age (1450- 1840)

  • Johann Guttenberg - Movable Metal type printing process in 1450
  • John Napier (1614) - a Baron Mechiston, Scotland invented LOGS (logarithm)
  • LOGS- allows multiplication and division to be reduce in add and sub
  • 1614- Arabian Lattice- lay out special version of the multiplication table on a set of four sided wooden rods
• Mechanical Age

  • Wilhelm Shickard - invented the first mechanical calculator (prof at uni of tubingen, Germany)
  • William Oughtred - 1575- 1660- invented the slide rule
  • Blaise Pascal - invented the Pascaline
  • Gottfried Leibniz - Invented Stepped Reckoner
  • Joseph Marie Jacquard - developed the automatic loom
  • Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar - Developed Arithmometer
  • Charles Babbage - Invented the difference engine and analytical Engine
  • Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace byron - first computer programmer
• Electromechanical Age

  • Voltaic Battery - Invented by Alessandro Volta - first electric battery
  • Telegraph - Samuel F.B. Morse - conceived of his version of an Electromagnetic Telegraph
  • Alexander Graham Bell - 1879, Developed the first telephone
  • Guglielmo Marconi - 1894 - Discovered that electrical waves travel through space (Radio)
  • George Boole - 1852- Developed the binary Algebra known as Boolean Algebra
• Electromechanical Computing

  Pehr & Edward Scheutz completed a tabulating Machine, capable or processing fifteen digit numbers, printing out results and rounding off to 8 digits


  1853
• Tabulating Machine


  Capable of processing fifteen digit numbers, printing out results and rounding off to 8 digits
• Comptometer


  Key driven adding and subtracting calculator
• Comptograph


  Comptometer containing a built in printer
• Herman Hollerith


  Father of information processing. Founded tabulating machine Company then later became International Business machines corp (IBM)
• Punched Card


  Provided new way for programmers to put information to their machine
• Millionaire


  Efficient four function calculator invented by Otto Shweiger
• Vacuum tubes


  Developed by Lee de forest
• Electromechanical Age
• Electronic Age (1941 - present)
• Konrad Zuse 1941 - built the first programmable computer called z3
• Howard Aiken - developed Mark 1 the first stored-program computer
• John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry - completed the first all electronic computer called ABC or Atanasoff- Berry computer