Impact of Technology on Networking

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Impact of Technologyon Networking

• Rick Wagoner
• September 19, 2004

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Todays Networks

• Todays networks are extremely complex systems
  that have been developed from many of the
  technological advances made over the last
  century. Many of the components that were needed
  to complete such a system, however, where
  developed many centuries ago.
• Audio/Video/Data networks all have key elements
  in common that could not have been designed
  without the early research into electricity and
  its properties and also the need or maybe desire
  for people to communicate across longer and
  longer distances in shorter and shorter times.
• Lets back up and start with the early
  technological breakthroughs.

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Electricity

• 1600 The concept of electricity was developed.
  Magnetism was also discovered. You can not have
  electricity without some sort of magnetism to
  create a charge. Electric insulators were
  developed.
• 1745 The electric capacitor was invented. This
  is a storage device for an electric charge.
  Todays computers depend heavily on capacitors
  for proper operation of the electronic
  components.
• 1749 Benjamin Franklin determined that
  electricity has two states positive and
  negative. This discovery creates the binary
  system which is the basis for all modern day
  computer operation.
• 1828 The electric resistor was invented. This
  is a method for controlling voltage through a
  circuit. This is another component, as the
  capacitor, that are used to build modern day
  computers and networking equipment.

4
Mechanical Computers

• 1623 A mechanical calculator was built. This
  device along with several others provided some of
  the basic logic to be used in later electronic
  computers.

5
Computer Programming

• 1725 Basile Bouchon created the punched card to
  control the operating process of a loom. This
  will eventually lead to the industry method of
  programming computers.
• 1829 Charles Babbage created a mechanical
  calculator and used the punched card to program
  his calculator. His machine was never completed
  but it laid the groundwork for later inventors.

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Networking Models

• 1837 The telegraph was invented. It was
  several years later before the first message was
  sent. The telegraph model of communication is
  considered to be one of the very first networks
  (audio). Again, this network used a binary
  system (as todays networks) of long or short
  signals.
• 1876 The telegraph lead to the telephone
  system. There were several modifications made to
  the telegraph model to fully accommodate the use
  of the telephone system but networking has been
  born and is growing.
• 1970 Cable was developed and distributed to the
  general community. The project took the
  telephone model of networking and modified it the
  needs of the video transmission.

7
Computer Progression

• 1880 The analog computer was designed. It
  could not be built but laid the foundation for a
  machine that was built in 1930. This machine was
  a card-driven electromechanical tabulator.
• 1947 Computer aided process was implemented. A
  computer was used to aid aircraft design.
• 1948 Computer memory was created.
• 1949 First computer built with a program. The
  program was stored in the computers memory.
• 1955 The first computer hard disk was created
  for computer storage.

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Need for a Data Network

• 1967 Advanced Research Projects Agency designed
  a data network to share governmental and
  educational resources.
• 1976 First supercomputer was built. It allowed
  150 million operations per second.
• Mid 1980s The boom of the personal computer
  also generated additional need or desire to share
  resources. Modern day networking was born.

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Networking

• Without the technological advancements made as
  far back as the 1600s and 1700s there would not
  be a need for networking today.
• Technology was partially defined as a tool for
  change and we can see where a change made over
  400 years ago is still having an impact on
  society.

10
Where is the future?

• Due to new technology that is being created and
  developed today networking is still growing. We
  are now looking at wireless networks, VO-IP
  (voice over IP) networking. In the past we have
  three different networks for audio/video/data
  networks. Networking is once again going through
  a change that is leading to convergence of all
  three network models into a single model and
  infrastructure. It will be exciting to watch.