Lesson 2_Evolution of Information Technology.docx

**History Of Computers** Everyone says that computers are the latest buzzword that is happening in every walk of life. It is only the modern avatara of Computer; otherwise the history of computers goes back to the Vedic, Harappan, Greek, Egyptian and Japanese civilizations. If we go by the simples...

**History Of Computers** Everyone says that computers are the latest buzzword that is happening in every walk of life. It is only the modern avatara of Computer; otherwise the history of computers goes back to the Vedic, Harappan, Greek, Egyptian and Japanese civilizations. If we go by the simplest definition of computer then it is the instrument, which helps in computing. The idea of computing arisen due to the concept of counting. In the initial years of the development of human civilizations probably the fingers of our hands were the most common instrument to count the things, like one finger for one & two fingers for two & so on. Then many other things like sticks, small stones & other objects available naturally in abundant numbers were used to help counting. Different civilizations grew & chosen their own methods of counting. As the trading started for various items & people came into contact with other civilizations, the need for counting & calculations grew many folds. Different civilizations invented different numerals to be used for counting. The invention of zero by India is very significant in this context. Different numerals used for counting have been shown in figure. With coming of numerals the system of writing them came into being. The decimal number system is now most prevalent universally. Slowly & slowly various civilizations contributed to the different aspects of mathematics. So, What we are doing today with the help of mathematics is the outcome of thousands of years of sustained research & growth. The computers of today are also the outcome of thousands of years of brainstorming & application of science by different people around the world. The first instrument that is known in the history of computers was called Abacus  John Napier (1550-1617 A.D.) developed the idea of logs to transform multiplication problem to addition problem. The idea of logarithms later became the basis of the invention that is popularly known as the Slide rule. The Slide rule was invented in 1662. Napier also developed some set of rods for helping in multiplication. The reason of calling the invention as Napier Bones is that the rods were made of Bones.   A French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented a machine in 1642 for adding numbers. The characteristic of addition was the speed with which it was done. So the machine was named as adding machine. For addition & subtraction it worked on clockwork mechanism principle. The adding machine consisted of numbered toothed wheels. Each tooth was having a unique position value. The rotation of wheels controlled the addition & subtraction operations. Carry-transfer was also done automatically in this. A German mathematician, Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibnitz (1645-1716 AD) improved Pascal's Adding machine. Now it was able to do the multiplication & division as well. The multiplications & divisions were performed through repeated additions & subtractions respectively. Instead of wheels Leibnitz used stepped cylinder with nine teeth of varying lengths. It can also perform some other calculations like square roots etc.  A French weaver involved in designing clothes & making patterns or designs on clothes invented punched cards with holes to make beautiful designs. It was in 1801 AD when American Revolution was at its end. The presence or absence of a hole in the punched card represented two states for raising or lowering of the thread on the cloth. The whole process of weaving became automatic because punched card was storing information in the form of holes. This gave the idea of storing & retrieving information, which greatly influenced the future researchers in the field of computing. Punched cards were in common use till 1990.  An English Professor of Mathematics Charles Babbage developed a Mechanical machine with the name Difference Engine. The machine was able to calculate various mathematical functions like logarithms, polynomials & algebraic. The precision in calculating these functions was quite good. It was giving the results up to 20 decimal places. **Babbage's Analytical Engine (1833 AD):** This was the machine that never became operational. But the idea & design of the machine given by Charles Babbage has some of the concepts being used in modern day computers. For this reason He is also called the Father of Computers. The meticulous & methodical design of the Analytical engine has the capability to perform comparisons. The features like Central processor, storage area, memory & input-output devices were incorporated in the design. It also has the capability to follow some machine sequences. The most fascinating of all was the permission to change the numbers & instructions already stored in the machine. The programs were to be stored in punched cards to be read by the machine. Lady Augusta Ada Lovelace helped Babbage in organizing the programs into the analytical machine concept. So she is also called as the First Programmer.  An American Statistician Herman Hollerith, working in the department of Census fabricated the dream of Charles Babbage. He was annoyed at the time taken to calculate & organize the data of a census. It generally took around 10 years to calculate the data by which time the next census became due. By his efforts he developed the machine & used it for census data calculations. The data was now calculated in three years instead of 10 years. He used punched cards for input, output & instructions. Hollerith founded a tabulating machine company that later merged with others to become the IBM (International Business Machines Corporation), one of the biggest companies in the field of computers.  With the help of IBM Engineers Prof. Howard Aiken (1900-1973) constructed a computer named Mark-I. This could multiply numbers in seconds, which was a record at that time. It was first electromagnetic computer that could calculate according to pre- programmed instructions automatically without any need of human intervention.It was a huge machine and occupied several rooms. The inside of the computer had the electrical wires that were hundred miles long. Several electromechanical relays & mechanical counters were used for arithmetic calculations.   ENIAC: (1946 AD) this was the first electronic Computer developed by a team lead by Prof. Eckert and Mauchy at the University of Pennsylvania in USA. Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator called ENIAC used vacuum tubes as switching devices. It was having around 18,000 Vacuum tubes, 70000 registers, 10000 capacitors and 600 switches. It used 150,000 watts of electricity & cost \$ 400,000. It occupied around 5000 square feet of space. It took around 200 microseconds for addition & 2800 microseconds for multiplication. US army used it until 1955 to calculate the trajectories of missiles & other mathematical calculations. Instructions were given to the computer by External Plug Boards or switches.  UNIVAC (1951 AD): Universal Automatic Computer known as UNIVAC was the first commercial computer developed by UNIVAC division of Remington Rand Company. It was used by General Electric besides other big companies. Initial applications of computers were in Science & Engineering where the calculations to be done are enormous  By this time the binary number system was invented. So now it was simple to store in binary numbers instead of decimal numbers. Electronic Discrete variable automatic computer known as EDVAC also used the Von Neumann Architecture. This architecture advocates the concept of pre-stored instructions as programs. With this the operations became faster then before.      First Generation (up to 1954): All the electronic computers described above are part of the first generation of computers. It started with ENIAC as the first electronic computer. Major characteristics of the computers belonging to first generations were. 1\. The computers used Vacuum Tubes. 2\. The size of the machines was huge. 3\. The speed of processing was very slow. 4\. The space taken was too large. 5\. The computers were very costly 6\. Difficult to manufacture 7\. Programming was very difficult 8\. It was very difficult to remove the errors. 9\. The computers were having all the components like Input, Output, CPU like the modern day computers 10\. The use of these computers in Industrial or Commercial Sites was very less. 11\. The scope of computers was thought to be in calculating the difficult calculations & doing the complex arithmetic. 12\. Power consumption was more & the computers radiate a lot of heat. 13\. Punched cards were used for Input & Output. 14\. Only Machine level or Assembly language was used.  1. These computers were using transistors for CPU components & ferrite cores for main memory. 2. As Transistors replaced the Vacuum tubes, so the size decreased as compared to First generation computers. 3. The performance of the computers increased because transistors consume one tenth of the power as compared to Vacuum tubes & generate less heat. 4. These used magnetic disks, Magnetic tapes & drums for secondary memory. Memory capacity was up to 100 Kilobytes (1 Kilo Byte= 1024 Bytes). 5. Floating point arithmetic was widely used in all these machines. 6. Use of High Level Languages Like FORTRAN, ALGOL & COBOL started in these computers. 7. The processing speed increased. 8. These were all batch processing systems. 9. The Computers were widely used in Science & Engineering Applications apart from many commercial applications. 10. New Professions like Programmers & system Analysts emerged during this period. 11. Academic programmes in computer science were started during this period. 12. Concept of operating system started evolving. Third Generation Computers (1965-1974) ====================================== 1. Instead of Transistors ICs (Integrated Circuits) were used for internal operations of CPU. Use of ICs eliminated wired interconnection between components. Initially these were using Small Scale Integrated Chips (SSI) that was having around 10 transistors per chip. In the later years computers were using Medium Scale Integrated Chips (MSI) that were having around 100 transistors per chip. 2. Semiconductor memories were used. So the memory capacity increased both at primary & secondary memory level. Memory capacity was now up to 100 Mega Bytes (1 Mega Byte = 1024 Kilo Bytes). 3. Concept of cache memory was also incorporated in third generation of computers. 4. There was further reduction in size & cost. 5. The reliability, efficiency & speed increased as compared to its predecessors. 6. Data Base Management Systems Emerged. 7. Business applications were now quickly moving towards automation. 8. Many Interactive Systems became feasible. 9. Mainframes were the highlights of this generation. 10. The CPUs were now able to carry 1 million instructions per second. 11. Multiprocessing, timesharing, multiprogramming systems were introduced. 1. There were rapid improvements in the chip technology. In the initial years instead of MSI these computers used Large Scale Integrated chips that were having around 1000 transistors per second. In the late 80s these computers were using Very Large scale integrated chips that were having around 5000 transistors in a chip. The emergence of processor on a single chip has further increased the number of transistors on a single chip to around 500000. 2. The input & output devices like floppy disk, compact disk, video disk, touch screens, scanners, digital cameras, web cameras, highly improved printers became very common. 3. The size of the primary memory & secondary memory increased many fold. With improvements in the storage devices now hard disks are most popular media for storage. Now the size of the memory is up to 100 Giga Bytes (1 Giga Byte = 1024 Mega Bytes). 4. Separate processors are used for different processes like I/O processor, graphics processor etc. 5. Concept of distributed processing, parallel processing evolved. 6. Extremely powerful personal computers are now part of every home. Multimedia workstations emerged. 7. The size & cost of the Computers is continuously decreasing. The laptops & handheld computers are the examples of the miniaturization in computer of fourth generations. 8. Supercomputers are having the speed up to 1 billion instructions per second. 9. The way we do programming has also changed. In the initial years with the C language programming methodology changed to structured methodology. In the later years with C++ & Java now we are using object-oriented languages. Many interactive languages like Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual Age for Java also became popular. 10. Advanced databases incorporating Distributed databases concepts & having user-friendly graphical menus became prevalent. 11. With advancements in Communication technology & the coming of Internet computers changed the way of life. The way of doing businesses has changed. The concept of digital firm is evolving. 12. With the help of Fiber Optics networks the transmission speeds & quantity of data increased. It became possible to send Audio & Video as data Fifth Generation Computer ========================= 1. Fifth generation computers will use Ultra Large Scale Integration Chips That will have millions of transistors on a single chip. 2. The speed of the doing computations will be around 1 trillion per second. 3. The memory size will go up to 100 Terra Bytes (1 Terra Byte = 1024 Giga Byte). 4. Many of the advanced countries are doing the projects related to this. Sample systems have already been prepared. These Computers will have Artificial Intelligence, so they may also be called as Expert Systems. 5. These Computers will have intelligence like human beings & will incorporate knowledge-based problem solving skills. 6. The input to these systems can be through speech & graphics. Similarly the output can be taken as speech. 7. These computers will be able to understand natural languages & will be able to convert one language from another language. 8. These computers will become more intelligent by time because they will have self- learning techniques. 9. Genetic Programming, Biotechnology, Biochips, Human like Robots will be the technologies that will evolve. 10. The computers will be part of mobile phones, handheld devices like watches etc.