The Distinct Differences Among The Four Ages In Information Technology

There are distinct differences among the four ages in information technology. These four ages of technology are the Pre-mechanical, Mechanical, Electromechanical, and Electronic.

PRE-MECHANICAL

The premechanical age is the earliest age of information technology. It can be defined as the time between 3000B.C. and 1450A.D. We are talking about a very long time ago,wherein when humans first started communicating they had try to use language or simple picture drawings known as petroglyths which were usually carved in rocka. It is when the early alphabets were developed such as the Phoenician alphabet.

As alphabets became more popluar and more people were writing information, pens and paper began to be developed. It started off as just marks in wet clay, then later on, the paper was created out of papyrus plant. The most popular kind of paper made was probably by the Chinese who made paper from rags.

Now that people were writing a lot of information, they needed ways to keep it all in permanent storage. This is when the first books and libraries are developed. You’ve probably heard of Egyptian scrolls which were popular ways of writing down information to be saved. Some groups of people in this time were actually binding paper together into a book-like form.

Also during this period is when the first numbering systems was introduced . It was around 100A.D. when the first 1-9 system was created by people from India. However, it wasn’t until 875A.D. (775 years later) that the number 0 was invented. And yes now that numbers were created, people wanted stuff to do with them so they created calculators. A calculator was the very first sign of an information processor. The popular model of that time was the abacus.

MECHANICAL

The mechanical age is when we first start to see connections between our current technology and its ancestors. The mechanical age can be defined as the time between 1450 and 1840. A lot of new technologies are developed in this era as there is a large explosion in interest with this area. Technologies like the slide rule (an analog computer used for multiplying and dividing) were invented. Blaise Pascal invented the Pascaline which was a very popular mechanical computer. Charles Babbage developed the difference engine which tabulated polynomial equations using the method of finite differences.

There were lots of different machines created during this era, though in this time they have not yet gotten a machine that can do more than the typical modern-day calculators. Also, if you look at the size of the machines invented in this time compared to the power behind them, of these inventions were HUGE.

ELECTROMECHANICAL

Now we are finally getting close to some technologies that resemble our modern-day technology. The electromechanical age can be defined as the time between 1840 and 1940. This is the time where beginnings of telecommunication occurred . The telegraph was created in the early 1800s. Morse code was created by Samuel Morse in 1835. The telephone (one of the most popular forms of communication ever) was created by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. The first radio developed by Guglielmo Marconi in 1894. All of these were extremely crucial emerging technologies that led to big advances in the information technology field.

The first large-scale automatic digital computer in the United States was the Mark 1 created by Harvard University around 1940. This computer was 8ft high, 50ft long, 2ft wide, and weighed 5 tons - HUGE. It was programmed using punch cards. How does your PC match up to this hunk of metal? It was from huge machines like this that people began to look at downsizing all the parts to first make them usable by businesses and eventually in their own home.

ELECTRONIC

The electronic age is the time we're we currently live in. It can be defined as the time between 1940 and right now. The ENIAC was the first high-speed, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. This computer was designed to be used by the U.S. Army for artillery firing tables. This machine was even bigger than the Mark 1 taking up 680 square feet and weighing 30 tons - HUGE. It mainly used vacuum tubes to do its calculations.

There are 4 main sections of digital computing. The first was the era of vacuum tubes and punch cards like the ENIAC and Mark 1. Rotating magnetic drums were used for internal storage. The second generation replaced vacuum tubes with transistors, punch cards were replaced with magnetic tape, and rotating magnetic drums were replaced by magnetic cores for internal storage. Also during this time high-level programming languages were created such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The third generation replaced transistors with integrated circuits, magnetic tape was used throughout all computers, and magnetic core turned into metal oxide semiconductors. An actual operating system showed up around this time along with the advanced programming language BASIC. The fourth and latest generation brought in CPUs (central processing units) which contained memory, logic, and control circuits all on a single chip. The personal computer was developed (Apple II). The graphical user interface (GUI) was also developed.

HOW ICT PLAY AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN

INNOVATION

ICT is one of the economic development pillars to gain national competitive advantage. It can improve the quality of human life because it can be used as a learning and education media, another is that the mass communication media is a big help in promoting and campaigning practical and important issues, such as the health and social area.

ICT sector plays an important role, notably by contributing to rapid technological progress and productivity growth. Firms use ICTs to organize transnational networks in response to international competition and the increasing need for strategic interaction. As a result, multinational firms are a primary vehicle of the ever spreading process of globalization. New technologies and their implementation in productive activities are changing the economic structure and contributing to productivity increases in OECD economies. Economic competitiveness depends on productivity level and in the knowledge economy, ICT sectors determine the productivity level. As a result, we can say that the power of economic competitiveness of a country depends on the productivity of its ICT sector.

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