History of Data Communication

Data Communications

• Data refers to information stored in digital form, processed, organized, and stored.
• Data is plural, and datum is singular.

History of Data Communications

• 1832: The telegraph, the first data communication system, was invented by Samuel F.B. Morse.
• 1840: The American patent for the telegraph was granted.
• 1844: The first telegraph line was established between Baltimore and Washington D.C., conveying the first telegraph message "What hath God wrought!"
• 1849: The first slow-speed telegraph printer was invented.
• 1850: Western Union Telegraph Company was formed in Rochester, New York.

Milestones in Data Communications

• 1860: "High-speed" printers (15 bps) became available.
• 1874: Emile Baudot invented a telegraph multiplexer that allowed signals from up to six different telegraph machines to be transmitted simultaneously over a single wire.
• 1875: The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell.
• 1899: Guglielmo Marcony succeeded in sending radio (wireless) telegraph messages.

Computing and Internet

• 1930s: Konrad Zuis demonstrated a computing machine.
• 1940: Bell Laboratories developed the first special-purpose computer using electromechanical relays for performing logical operations.
• 1946: The first modern-day computer (ENIAC) was developed by J.Prespeer Eckert and John Mauchley at the University of Pennsylvania.
• 1949: The U.S. National Bureau of Standards developed the first all-electronic diode-based computer capable of executing stored-programs.

Internet and World Wide Web

• 1950s: "Batch processing" computers used punched cards as an input interface, printers as an output interface, and magnetic tape reels for data storage.
• 1960s: Batch-processing systems were replaced by on-line processing systems with terminals connected directly to the computer through serial or parallel communication lines.
• 1968: The US Supreme Court Carterfone decision allowed non-Bell (non-AT&T) equipment to be connected to the vast AT&T network.
• 1969: The internet began to evolve at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) through the ARPANET.

Modern Developments

• 1989: Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau built the prototype system that became the World Wide Web at CERN.
• 1991: Anders Olsson transmits solitary waves through an optical fiber with a data rate of 32 billion bits per second.
• 1992: Neil Papworth sends the first SMS (or text message).
• 1994: Internet radio broadcasting is born.
• 1999: 45% of Australians have a mobile phone, and Sirius satellite radio is introduced.
• 2001: First digital cinema transmission by satellite in Europe of a feature film is undertaken.
• 2003: Apple launches the iTunes Music Store and sells one million songs in its first week, and MySpace is launched.
• 2004: Facebook is launched.