Information has evolved from the primitive to the modern sophisticated stage of the information and communication technology. The following are the stages of evolution of information and communication technology. This runs from the ancient methods to the invention of printing and then up to the computer.
The invention of printing: printing is a process of reproducing text and image typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large scale industrial process. It is an essential part of the publishing business.
printing developed in China before 220 AD. The earliest form of printing was the wood block printing which started in Egypt in the 4th century. Later development in printing include the movable type, first developed by Bi sheng in China. The introduction of printing with movable type was the beginning of the information explosion. The printing press was developed by Johannes Gutenberg goldsmith in Mainz in the 15th century and is a more efficient printing process. Printing evolution has both social and religious impacts in the society. Print give a brother range of readers access to knowledge and enabled letter generations to build on the intellectual achievements of earlier ones. It also spread knowledge so much that it made people know their rights and liberties.
Radio: The radio was invented by James Clark Maxwell. Other contributors included Heinrich Hertz, Nikola Tesla, Fleming. Edwin Howard developed the FM in 1933. Sony produced the world’s first commercial produced transistor radio.
Television: in 1925 John logie baird invented the television. Other contributors included Charles f Jenkins and Philo T. Farnsworth. Sunny introduced the handheld battery operated television.
The Invention of the computer: invention of computer started around 2,000 years ago. The computer started out as an abacus. I’m abacus is a wooden rack with two wires running parallel to each other. There is not just one inventor of the computer, as the ideas of many scientists and engineers led to its invention. These ideas where developed in the 1930s and 1940s, most independently of each other, in Germany, Great Britain and the USA, and were turned into working machines. The first digital computer was invented in 1642 by Blaise Pascal although it could not do addition. However in 1671 a computer was invented that was eventually built in 1694 by Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz. Unlike Pascal’s computer, Leibniz could add and multiply. Leibniz also invented the stepped gear mechanism. Babbage’s difference engine designed in the 1840s qualifies as a computer since it was programmable though entirely mechanical. Other inventors of computers include Konrad Zuse, Alan Turing and many others.
The era of modern computers dates back to 1930s or 1940s. Konrad Zuse invented Z1 computer in 1936. It was the first freely programmable computer. In 1942 John Atanasoff and Clifford berry invented the ABC computer. Following ABC computer was the development of Harvard Mark1 in 1944 by Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper. Harvard Mark1 was also called ASCC(Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator) followed by ENIAC(Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) by John Prosper Eckert and John W. Mauchly in 1946. EDSAC(Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer) was developed in 1948 at Manchester university.
in 1959 the monolithic integrated circuits (now called the microchip) was invented by Jack kilby and a few months later by robots noyce, of fair child semiconductor in California. The microchip led to the development of the microcomputer; small, low cost computers that individuals and small businesses could afford. The first home computers became commercially viable in the mid to late 1970s, but more so in the early 1980s. By the 1990s the microcomputer or personal computer became a common household appliance, and became even more available in different convenient forms such as notebooks, laptops, desktops, palmtops, PDAs(personal digital assistant). The invention of the computer has the greatest impact on the evolution of information. The computer is the bedrock of all principles and processes of information starting from generation to processing to transmission and to storage.
Linking up the computer with information and communication technology: the integration of the computer with information and communications technology brought a major leap in the evolution of information. Computer is the foundation on which ICT rests. All ICT processes, if a structure programs are computer dependant. The computer is used to design and operate, deploy and control, all ICT equipment. Computer has facilitated information in all fronts, in the form of information capture, processing, retrieval, upgrading and storage.
Before the invention of the computer Man had developed means or devices of counting and calculation using natural objects. Devices have been used to aid counting and calculation for thousands of years using one-to-one correspondence with fingers.
Early counting devices: The early counting devices we are fingers, toes, stones, sticks, pebbles, cowries, grains, nuts, fruits, marks, clay shapes. When human beings land to count they probably started using their fingers as they first digital calculator. The earliest counting device was probably a form of tally stick. The abstract idea of using pebbles or sticks to represent quantities was the beginning of arithmetic and the number system we use today. Using pebbles, it is possible to add and subtract numbers quickly. Clay shapes represented quantities of items such as livestock or grains sealed in containers.
Problems of using the early counting devices in counting large numbers
- It was difficult to obtain the devices in large numbers
- This device is created calculation errors
- using this devices was time consuming and frustrating
- multiplication was very difficult where are multiplication of large numbers was impracticable
Mechanical counting and calculating devices: when pebbles are strung as beads on sticks or wires in a frame, it becomes an abacus, called soroban by the Japanese. The abacus was probably invented in Western Europe and then exported to the Orient or the Eastern world. Forgotten or abandoned during the dark ages, the abacus was introduced to Europe via the Arabs. In the abacus each wire with its beads represent a positional number the unit column, The ten’s column. The beads can be rapidly used to add and subtract numbers. Multiplication can be handled by repetitive addition. This was the first mechanical calculator