When people hear the words "information technology", the first things that we are spontaneously computers and the Internet. It can also bring to words such as "Network", "intranet", "Server", "Firewall", "security", as well as more arcane terms like "router", "T-1", "Ethernet" or the mysterious and exotic sounding 'VoIP' (pronounced "voyp").
In fact, information technology is all this and much more. It is not new, however. Informationstechnologieis as old as the brain, even when you think about the brain as an information processor. As far as being a science, even that goes back as far as the first attempts to communicate and store information.
And that is what is essentially information technology: process the transmission and storage of information, along with the ability and use the stored information. In this chapter we will begin with a brief history of IT, what it is today, and the variousmain types of IT systems available today.
A Short History Of Information Technology
As human societies grew in size and complexity, so has the need to collect, store and transmit information. While it may be argued that the brain is a form of "bio-computer science," the Greek word "Tektra" - represented, of which we use the word "technology" - actually refers to scientific or mechanical knowledge, in particular, which involves the use of tools.Therefore, we will begin our journey with the man, the first attempts to capture and transfer of knowledge through mechanical means.
The Neolithic and Bronze Age
We could not have thought of as "information technology", several thousand years back, when we as a sort of painted animals cave walls. But in fact, that is exactly what it can.
With a combination of tools that contain manganese "pens" and sound that was colored with various pigments TopPeople leave these pictures on the walls of a cave near Lascaux, France, and on rocks in the Algerian Sahara.
These were called about 18,000 and 8,000 years old or outdated. Unfortunately there is no way to be sure exactly what message was sent to be (a problem that our own descendants 15,000 years from now may very well come from what we leave behind!)
As the pictures show animals that are often hunted at the time, and given the importance ofGame to a hunter-gatherer culture, it is possible that such images designed experiments that provide information about this game, or part of a rite that was to ensure a successful hunt.
The invention of writing systems - including symbols like hieroglyphics, alphabetic writing, and "syllables" systems - seems to have almost the same time as the development of agriculture made. Agriculture introduced, as previously unknown terms such as land ownership, trade, and the advancedAccumulation of wealth, which in turn led to increasingly complex social structures.
As expected, this required more detailed and efficient record keeping. Alphabetic writing) has a substantial advantage over pictograms (hieroglyphs, because a relatively small number of symbols (letters) can be used over and over again in endless combinations to communicate almost anything. (As you will see later, modern IT applications, only two of these symbols!)
Preservation and storage of such informationprovided certain challenges, information had to be either on stone or clay tablets (which was difficult), or furs, wax tablets or papyrus () is not permanent.
The Hellenistic world
The Classical Greeks were held the first people to try to find scientific, rational explanations for natural phenomena. Some of the earliest proto-computers were known mechanical devices developed by the Greeks. Was one of them was a form of abacus (which also developed and usedin ancient China). The device is easy and simple mathematical calculation.
Consider early Greco-Roman Abacus
Another early device was the antique Computational therapeutic, of Greek origin. An antique thera was discovered by a Greek sponge divers over a century ago, it was only recently that this 2100-year-old unit rebuilt and has shown that an early form of computer designed around the movements of the sun, moon and planets five tables known at the time.
EarlyProgrammable Devices
At the time, the gradual disintegration and decline of the Roman Empire was complete in 476 CE, scientific and technological progress in the Western world was stalled. While much of the scientific evidence was preserved by Irish monks of the Greek and Arab scholars, it was not until the fourteenth century that applied the principles of technology and information will be rediscovered. The first was of course the press.
AlthoughConcept of printing with movable type was developed in China some four hundred years ago, it was Gutenberg's device in 1447 that revolutionized the communication because it easier and faster to collect and disseminate information than ever before. Not go with the first truly programmable device for another 354 years, but.
The Jacquard loom in 1801 was a product of the industrial revolution. The invention uses a series of specially-punched paper cards, the functional asTemplates for the automatic weaving highly complex patterns. The punch card was very important, in Computing in the 1950's, 60's and 70's.
The next development step was Charles Babbage's "Analytical Machine" - a fully programmable computer that was unfortunately not built. Babbage was working according to designs from 1837 until his death in 1871. This steam-powered mechanism would have used punched cards, with a central processing unit (CPU) and a form of memoryStorage in the form of a system of pegs inserted into rotating drums.
The Analytical Engine would be able to store 1,000 numbers of up to fifty digits, and perform six different mathematical operations, including the calculation of square roots. Babbage's ideas were to be integrated into early electronic computing devices developed in the late 1930s and 1940, although not all of them were actually programmed. The first truly programmable computer - in a position toStore and use information - not in general use until 1950, and yes - made use of punch cards (born before 1965 may remember the game come with them).
Of course, most people are in the 70's, 80's and 90's of course only for that information and communication technology we have today is born of Fairley recent developments in science, mechanics and electronics. But we now know differently, not us. And therefore better able to recognize what we have available to us now.
