Intro to Business Computing: Brief History of Technology

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Intro to Business Computing Brief History of
Technology

• Vanya Kasakova

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Inventions that Changed the World

• Cultivation
• The Wheel
• Domestication of Animals
• Language
• Writing
• The Printing Press
• The Personal Computer
• The Internet

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Cultivation

• Prehistoric man was nomadic, moving as needed to
  follow game or forage. People foraged for any
  plants they could eat. Once it was found that
  edible plants returned in the next growing season
  where they had been found before, family groups
  could settle nearby, and cultivation of crops was
  begun, as the people tried to aid the crop plants
  in growing by providing water or shelter. Once
  the source of the edible plants was discovered,
  seeds were planted wherever the plants were
  wanted. Farming had begun. It was soon followed
  by various forms of irrigation, the invention of
  many farm tools, including the plow, and the
  domestication of animals.

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The Wheel

• Until the invention of the wheel, belongings or
  household goods had to be carried or dragged
  whenever the tribe moved. The wheel made moving
  things easier, and when the loads were heavy,
  animals were domesticated to help pull them.

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Domestication of Animals

• Dogs were probably the first domestic animals.
  They could help in the hunt, and were willing
  partners with early man. Once cultivation of
  food crops began, other animals were domesticated
  either for use as draft animals, like Oxen and
  horses or as food.

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Language

• Spoken language began very early with the need to
  communicate very basic ideas. With the beginning
  of crop cultivation and animal husbandry
  (domestication and care), very primitive language
  became more complex in order to teach the young
  the skills required to raise crops and care for
  animals.
• Explain details
• Give an example
• Exercise to reinforce learning

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Writing

• Written language probably didnt evolve until
  ownership, and the resulting commerce made it
  necessary. In addition, family groups banded
  together into tribal groups, and written records
  were needed to make things run smoothly.
• Explain details
• Give an example
• Exercise to reinforce learning

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The Printing Press

• Not much changed from the early tribal cultures
  for most people until the invention of the
  printing press. By this time, there were land
  owners and they had serfs or tenant farmers.
  The only people who could learn to write or even
  use the skills of reading and writing were
  leaders, and rich people. In many cultures, the
  leaders were members of a religious group or
  church. In Europe and the UK this was the
  Catholic Church, which trained and employed
  scribes to hand copy all manuscripts
• The invention of the printing press made books
  available to many more people. Literacy became
  something almost anyone could acquire, as mass
  printed books were much cheaper.

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The Personal Computer

• The next really important invention was the
  personal computer. Nothing else really caused
  the same level of change as the printing press
  until the desktop computer made information
  available to everyone everywhere.

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The Internet

• The Internet has changed almost every part of our
  lives, even if we dont personally ever access
  it. New companies and new products are available
  now, because of the Internet. Many companies
  would not even exist but for the existence of the
  Internet.

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History of the Computer

• Abacus
• Jaquard Loom
• Difference Engine
• Eniac-Univac-
• Mainframes and Mini-mainframes
• Desktop Computers
• Internet

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Abacus

• The very first known computer was the abacus,
  used in China for centuries to compute numbers.

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Jaquard Loom

• This was a loom that used punched cards to
  control the weave pattern

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Difference Engine

• Arthur Turing invented this general purpose
  computer and Ada Lovelace wrote the first program
  for it, but it never was manufactured, because
  the machining techniques could not produce the
  fine quality parts needed for it.

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Eniac-Univac-

• These were early US defense computers. They used
  vacuum tubes, and were very large and slow.

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Apple

• This was an early desktop computer invented by
  Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in their California
  garage.

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Mainframes and Mini-mainframes

• PDP-11
• IBM 1400 systems
• Cray Computers

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Desktop Computers

• IBM XT
• This was the first MSDOS desktop computer
• Macintosh computer, created and sold by Apple
  Computer are aimed at the graphics, publishing
  and video market

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History of Information Systems What is an
information system?

• An information system is any group of
  interrelated components that work together in
  order to gather, store, process and distribute
  data as information. Data is streams of raw What
  is an Information System?

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Formal VS Informal

• There are two types of information systems
  formal and informal. An example of an informal
  type is the gossip which circulates around an
  office. Informal systems are often useful, but
  we will be concerned with the formal type, which
  is created by design in order to operate a
  business.

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Formal Information Systems

• Data is facts before they have been processed
  into forms that are meaningful and useful to
  humans. Processing data produces information,
  which is data in meaningful form that can be used
  by people.
• Paper based Information Systems
• This information was slow to retrieve, and
  required a lot of storage space
• All information systems in business used to be
  paper based. They consisted of reports and
  research on paper, letters and books, printed
  charts and graphs, and the notes kept by people
  who were relied upon for information, like
  secretaries and executive assistants, legal
  aides, accountants, and senior advisors in
  various fields.

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Computer Based Information Systems

• Computer based information systems store all the
  above in electronic form, which can be searched
  and retrieved instantly from almost anywhere in
  the world. The advent of the computer has
  created an information explosion, where the
  available knowledge in the world has been
  doubling every few months. It is not possible
  for any one person or even any one group of
  people to know everything about even very
  narrowly defined subjects. However, computers
  have also made it possible for anyone to search
  for answers to any particular problem, and
  retrieve information almost instantly that is
  stored all over the world in various other
  computer.

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Designs

• Computer based information systems have many
  different designs, according to the needs of the
  group that they serve. The theory of the design
  of these information systems will be covered
  later in this book. However, all information
  systems have a basic structure in common input,
  processing, output.
• One part of the system gathers data, raw facts.
  This is input. This data may be typed in,
  gathered electronically from various locations,
  or researched on the Internet. Any part of the
  system that collects data is input.

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Purpose

• The main task of most systems is processing the
  raw data into information that can be used by the
  people in the business. Marketing people may
  need charts and graphs, illustrations, and word
  processed files containing descriptions of the
  products or services they sell. Accountants may
  need spread sheets of financial data. The
  shipping department may need address labels and
  documents that are included with the product to
  help the customer use it. Any part of the system
  that changes data into usable information is
  processing.

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Product

• Output can take many forms. The most used form
  is screen display on a monitor. People often
  look at information while they do other tasks,
  such as talking to suppliers or clients. Much
  output is printed documents, like letters,
  pamphlets, newsletters, labels, posters and books
  or manuals. Some information is distributed in
  electronic form as email, newsletters and
  reports. Any part of the system that distributes
  information is output.

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History of the Internet

• ARPAnet
• This was the beginning of the Internet. It was a
  US Defense Department connection of research
  scientists for sharing information.
• CIS
• Compuserve Information Services was an early
  on-line messaging system where people could
  discuss almost any topic and also chat live. It
  started in the early 1980s.
• AOL
• America On line followed much the same format as
  CIS and offered about the same services.
• Prodigy
• Prodigy was like CIS and AOL for academic uses
  and was very popular with teachers and
  professors, as it offered much research material.
• Others
• There were many other small services that have
  disappeared, either gone out of business or
  bought by other large companies like CIS and AOL.

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History of the Internet

• CERN
• Cern, Switzerland is where the majority of the
  rules for the Internet are stored and applied.
• WAIS Servers
• These were early information servers at
  universities that allowed searches and provided
  some menus.
• Archie, Veronica and the Gopher
• These search tools were developed at McGill
  University in Montreal, Quebec to help find
  documents and files on the Internet.

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History of the Internet

• The World Wide Web
• This is the graphical paged collection of
  networked information stored on computers that
  are connected to the Internet full time that most
  people think is the Internet.
• The Internet also includes IRC (Internet Relay
  Chat), FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and News
  Servers (News Groups)