The Development of Information Technology and Communication

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BTEC First Diploma

For IT Practitioners

The Development of

Information Technology and Communication

Report

Date

11/02/2003

Contents

Introduction        3

Objectives        3

Findings        4

History of the Computer        5

Home        11

Businesses        11

Schools & Colleges        12

Industry        12

Conclusions        13

Appendix        13

Bibliography        14


Introduction

        

This assignment is about the development of ICT and my research into the history of computers.  I have included in my report research of ICT, and my research into the history of computers. I have included people of importance to the development of computers in my report.

Objectives

To find out information about the development of ICT and to find the importance of computer history. Also to find the importance of people that was involved in the development of computers in the early years to the present.


Findings

Development of Computers

Although the development of digital computers is rooted in the abacus and early mechanical calculating devices, Charles Babbage is credited with the design of the first modern computer, the “analytical engine,” during the 1830s. American scientist Vannevar Bush built a mechanically operated device, called a differential analyser, in 1930; it was the first general-purpose analogue computer. John Atanassoff constructed the first semi-electronic digital computing device in 1939.

The first fully automatic calculator was the Mark I, or Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, begun in 1939 at Harvard by Howard Aiken, while the first all-purpose electronic digital computer, ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator), which used thousands of vacuum tubes, was completed in 1946 at the Univ. of Pennsylvania. UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer) became (1951) the first computer to handle both numeric and alphabetic data with equal facility; this was the first commercially available computer.

First-generation computers were updated by the transistorised computers of the late 1950s and early 60s, second-generation machines that were smaller, used less power, and could perform a million operations per second. They, in turn, were replaced by the third-generation integrated-circuit machines of the mid-1960s and 1970s that were even smaller and were far more reliable. The 1980s and 90s were characterized by the development of the microprocessor and the evolution of increasingly smaller but powerful computers, such as the personal computer and personal digital assistant, which ushered in a period of rapid growth in the computer industry.

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The Development of ICT

History of the Computer

Pascal, Blaise

Born: Auvergne, France, June 19, 1623

Died: Paris, France, August 19, 1662

He discovered that the sum of the angles of a triangle are two right angles and, when his father found out, he relented and allowed Blaise a copy of Euclid.

Pascal invented the first digital calculator to help his father with his work collecting taxes. He worked on it for three years between 1642 and 1645. The device, called the Pascaline, resembled a mechanical calculator of the 1940s. This, ...

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