Learnings of the Week (June 6 - 28, 2008) (Renz Paula E. Rollorata)

RENZY says = = >

Computer Education in the fourth year is indeed far different from the lessons in our lower years. I've gained much awareness about the fundamentals of technologically advanced devices used nowadays, especially the computer. Honestly, I am used in disregarding the minutiae of everything I use these days. Yet, these small details about every huge things do mean a lot. History is exceptionally boring for me. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time studying all those itsy bitsy facts on the HISTORY of COMPUTER.

Primarily, we started on the rudiments of communication. The way of conveying of thoughts used by the ancient people. Notions of the people who lived during the 3000 B.C. – 1450 A.D. were shared through signs and symbols. The petroglyths were the very first type of communication. They are signs or simple figures carved in rock.

PETROGLYTH

Years passed by until the ancient people already had developed signs corresponding to spoken sounds, instead of pictures, to express words. Starting in 3100 B.C., the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (southern Iraq) devised cuneiform –the first true written language and the first real information system.

I thought computer began in the 20th century yet computing already started when our ancestors created the basics of counting methods. I was well-oriented with the methods used by the ancient people particularly the Egyptians and Chinese that led to the development of alphabet and numbers. Of course, I will not discuss the specific contributions of these people anymore. I would just generalize the concepts for a brief yet succinct paperback.

Let us now assess my learnings on the Mechanical Age

During this period, inventions were wide spreading and advances began. The first information explosion took place through the creation of the movable metal-type printing process in 1450 by Johann Guttenburg which led to the development of book indexes and the widespread use of page numbers. The first general purpose "computers” were introduced as one who works with numbers.

Innovations of devices were made by Johann Gutenberg , John Napier , WilhelmShickard, William Oughtred, Blaise Pascal , Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage and Ada Augusta Lovelace from 1450 – 1840.

The Electromechanical Age 1840-1940 is the discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this period. Knowledge and information could now be converted into electrical impulses.

This was the period were the beginnings of telecommunications were built up. These were the Voltaic battery, telegraph, telephone and radio.Electromechanical computing instigated through tabulating machine, comptometer, comptograph and punched cards. Tabulating machine was made-up by Herman Hollerith, the father of information processing. Comptometer is a key driven adding and subtracting calculator devised by Dorr Felt. Comptograph has the same abilities with the comptometer and has a built-in printer. Punched Cards were adapted for use in early computers and provided computer programmers with a new way to put information into their machine.

PUNCHED CARDS

And the last epoch in the progression of Information Technology is the Electronic Age. Devices shrunk. Information dwindled. Machines flinched. In this age, electrical and digital computers came across. In 1941, Konrad Zuse built the first programmable computer called Z3. Z3 is designed to solve engineering equations rather than basic arithmetic problems. Howard Aiken a PhD student of Harvard University built the Mark I " The First Stored Program Computer". In 1942, John Atanasoff and Clifford berry completed the first all-electronic computer the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry computer). ABC was the first computer to use electricity in the form of vacuum tubes to make electric computation possible.

In such a short span of time, I was already acquainted with the growth and expansion of Information Technology and System. In this instant, let me utter the knowledge I’d gained on the First and Second Generation Computers.

The elaboration of computers never sticks to the status quo. Generation by generation, lots of research are conducted to improve and innovate every machine and device.

The first generation of computers used vacuum tube; punched card; and rotating magnetic drums. In 1945, Presper Eckert and John Mauchly developed the first operational electronic digital computer, called ENIAC. In 1951 the UNIVAC-1 became the first commercially available electronic computer. This computer was designed by Eckert and Mauchly. Between 1951 and 1953 magnetic core memory was developed. This memory consists of tiny ferrite "donuts" that were arranged on a lattice of wires.

The first completely transistorized computers—so-called second-generation computers—begin to be introduced by Control Data Corporation, IBM, and other manufacturers. A transistor is a small, solid-state component designed to monitor the flow of the electric current. Transistors allowed computers to communicate over telephone lines.

With their increasing power and versatility, computers simplify day-to-day life. Unfortunately, as computer use becomes more widespread, so do the opportunities for misuse. Computers will become more advanced and they will also become easier to use. Improved speech recognition will make the operation of a computer easier. Well, those are the eruditions for this week. Wooh, mind-boggling, right? I think I should get use to it and look forward to a more intricate and complex Computer Education days. =)