What is a Computer?
A computer is an electronic device that manipulates information or data. It has the ability to store, retrieve, and
process data. You may already know that you can use a computer to type documents, send email, play games,
and browse the Web. You can also use it to edit or create spreadsheets, presentations, and even videos.
Data and Information
Data is the raw, unorganized, unprocessed information. For example, the information collected for writing a
research paper is data until it is presented in an organized manner.
Information is the processed, organized data that is beneficial in providing useful knowledge. For example, the
data compiled in an organized way in a research paper provides information about a particular concept/ topic.
In simple terms, we can conclude that data is an unorganized description of raw facts from which information
can be extracted.
Difference Between Data and Information
Data Information
Data is unorganized and unrefined facts. Information comprises processed, organized data
presented in a meaningful context.
Data is an individual unit that contains raw materials Information is a group of data that collectively
which do not carry any specific meaning. carries a logical meaning.
Data doesn’t depend on information. Information depends on data.
It is measured in bits and bytes. Information is measured in meaningful units like
time, quantity, etc.
Raw data alone is insufficient for decision making. Information is sufficient for decision making.
An example of data is a student’s test score. The average score of a class is the information
derived from the given data.
Information Technology (IT)
Information technology (IT) is the use of any computers, storage, networking and other physical devices,
infrastructure and processes to create, process, store, secure and exchange all forms of electronic data.
Hardware vs. Software
Hardware is any part of your computer that has a physical structure, such as the keyboard or mouse and it also
includes all of the computer's internal parts like motherboard, hard drive, etc.
Software is any set of instructions that tells the hardware what to do and how to do it. Examples of software
include web browsers, games and word processors.
Everything you do on your computer will rely on both hardware and software.
Uses of Information Technology
We can see the uses and role of information technology in our society in many fields:
Business
Since the arrival of computers, the entire face of the business world has been changed. To run the different
departments of business swiftly, use of Information Technology is important and it is possible with computers
and softwares. The use of information technology can be seen in departments such as finance, human resources,
manufacturing and security. Role of IT can’t be ignored.
Education
Technology enables teachers to be up to date with new techniques and help their students to be updated with
latest technologies such as use of tablets, mobile phones, computers, etc. in education. Information technology
not only helps students to learn new things but also helps students of college dropouts.
Finance
Information Technology opens the doors for traders and common people to do online purchases. Banks keep
records of all the transactions and accounts through computers. Unlike before, now the transactions and other
deals have become faster and easier.
Healthcare
With Information Technology, the field of medicine and health has been seeing tremendous improvements. For
doctors, sending and receiving information, checking patients, and discussing with other experts have become
very convenient. Also, it reduces the time taken in paperwork.
Security
Online transactions and keeping records of all the online transactions are now more safe than earlier times. Only
proper management and a person responsible for the system can access the data online. It prohibits any random
person from checking the details. All these have been made possible by keeping the system passwords proof.
Only permissible authority can access your information.
Communication
With improvements in information technology, globalization has increased. The world is brought closer, and the
world’s economy is quickly becoming a single interdependent system. Information can be shared quickly and
easily from all over the globe, and barriers of linguistic and geographic
boundaries can be torn down as people share ideas and information with each other.
Employment
With Information Technology, new jobs have been introduced. It creates new jobs for programmers, hardware
and software developers, systems analyzers, web designers and many others. Information Technology has
opened an entirely new fields and thousands of jobs for IT professionals.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Information Technology
Advantages
Communication – with the help of information technology the instant messaging, emails, voice and video calls
becomes quicker, cheaper and much efficient.
Globalization and cultural gap – sharing the information, knowledge, communication and relationships between
different countries, languages and cultures becomes much easier.
Availability – a business can be open anytime anywhere, making purchases from different countries easier and
more convenient. It also means that you can have your goods delivered right to your doorstep with having to
move a single muscle.
Creation of new types of jobs – one of the best advantages of information systems is the creation of new and
interesting jobs. Computer programmers, Systems analyzers, Hardware and Software developers and Web
designers are just some of the many new employment opportunities created with the help of IT.
Cost effectiveness and productivity – improves the supply of information to decision-makers; applying such
technologies can also play an important role in helping organizations to put greater importance on information
technology in order to gain a competitive advantage.
Disadvantages
Unemployment and lack of job security – implementing the information technology can save a great deal of
time during the completion of tasks
and some labor mechanic works. Most paperwork’s can be processed immediately, financial transactions are
automatically calculated, etc. As technology improves, tasks that were formerly performed by human employees
are now carried out by computer systems. Industry experts believe that the internet has made job security a big
issue as since technology keeps on changing with each day. This means that one has to be in a constant learning
mode, if he or she wishes for their job to be secure.
Dominant culture – while information technology may have made the world a global village, it has also
contributed to one culture dominating another weaker one.
Security issues – thieves and hackers get access on organizations sensitive company data. Such data can include
bank records, intellectual property and personal data on company management. The hackers distribute the
information over the Internet, sell it to rival companies or use it to damage the company’s image.
Implementation expenses – to integrate the information technology, it requires pretty good amount of cost in a
case of software, hardware and people. Software, hardware and some other services should be rented, bought
and supported. Employees need to be trained with unfamiliar information technology and software.
Information and Communication Technology
Communication has improved and evolved to facilitate our daily activities. In the 21st century, everything related
to communication utilizes technology to ‘send out’ or disseminate information to a wider audience. Information
can be ‘sent out’ in many ways. The inventions of cellular phones, television and other electronic devices are
important in enhancing communication.
What is Information and Communication Technology (ICT)?
ICT is the technology required for information processing, in particular, the use of electronic computers,
communication devices and software applications to convert, store, protect, process, transmit and retrieve
information from anywhere, anytime.
Traditionally also radio, television, and print media were the widespread technologies used for communication.
The digital revolution has changed the way these traditional technologies function. The analog television has
become digital television. In addition to the printed newspaper we also have electronic versions. Along with
traditional radio, we also have online radio.
With this example, let us try to arrive at a definition of ICT. UNESCO has defined ICT as forms of technology that
are used to transmit, process, store, create, display, share or exchange information by electronic means. It
includes not only traditional technologies like radio and television, but also modern ones like cellular phones,
computer and network, hardware and software, satellite systems and so on, as well as the various services and
applications associated with them, such as videoconferencing.
Look at the following table to get an understanding of range of technologies that fall under the category of ICT.
Information Technologies
Creation Personal Computers, Digital camera, Scanner,
Smartphone
Processing Calculator, PC, Smartphone
Storage CD, DVD, Pen drive, Microchip, Cloud
Display PC, TV, Projector, Smartphone
Transmission Internet, Teleconference, Video conferencing, Mobile technology,
Radio
Exchange e-mail, Cellphone
Information
Information refers to the knowledge obtained from reading, investigation, study or research.
The tools to transmit information are the telephone, television and radio.
We need information to make decisions and to predict the future. For example, scientists can detect the
formation of a tsunami using the latest technology and warn the public to avoid disasters in the affected areas.
Information is knowledge and helps us to fulfill our daily tasks. For example, forecasting the stock exchange
market.
Communication
Communication is an act of transmitting messages. It is a process whereby information is exchanged between
individuals using symbols, signs or verbal interactions. Previously, people communicated through sign or
symbols, performing drama and poetry. With the advent of technology, these ‘older’ forms of communication
are less utilized as compared to the use of the Internet, e-mail or video conferencing.
Communication is important in order to gain knowledge. With knowledge, we are more confident in expressing
our thoughts and ideas.
Technology
Technology is the use of scientific knowledge, experience and resources to create processes and products that
fulfill human needs. Technology is vital in communication.
Aiding Communication
Telephone and fax machines are the devices used in extending communication.
Spreading Information
To broadcast information such as news or weather reports effectively. Radio, television, satellites and the World
Wide Web (www) are powerful tools that can be used.
Technology Timeline
Technology Year
In 3500 BC, the Sumerians developed
cuneiform writing.
In 1500 BC, the Phoenicians developed the
alphabet
In 105 BC, Tsai Lun of China invented paper.
In 1454, the first printing began with the
creation of a printing machine.
Technology Year
In 1793, the telegraph line was invented.
In 1876, the first telephone was
introduced.
In 1925, television was made known to public.
In 1941, the computer was created.
In 1958, the photocopier machine was
introduced.
Technology Year
In 1963, the communication satellite was
introduced.
In 1969, the first Internet known as ARPANET
was introduced.
Computing Periods
Four basic periods, each characterized by a principal technology used to solve the input, processing, output and
communication problems of the time:
A. Premechanical
B. Mechanical
C. Electromechanical
D. Electronic
A. The Premechanical Age: 3000 B.C. - 1450 A.D.
1. Writing and Alphabets. The first humans communicated only through speaking and picture drawings. In
3000 B.C., the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (what is today southern Iraq) devised a writing system. The
system, called "cuneiform" used signs corresponding to spoken sounds, instead of pictures, to express
words. From this first information system — writing — came civilization as we know it today. The
Phoenicians around 2000 B.C. further simplified writing by creating symbols that expressed single syllables
and consonants (the first true alphabet). The Greeks later adopted the Phoenician alphabet and added
vowels; the Romans gave the letters Latin names to create the alphabet we use today.
2. Paper and Pens. For the Sumerians, input technology consisted of a pen like device called a stylus that could
scratch marks in wet clay. About 2600 B.C., the Egyptians discovered that they could write on the papyrus
plant, using hollow reeds or rushes to hold the first "ink" - pulverized carbon or ash mixed with lamp oil and
gelatin from boiled donkey skin. Other societies wrote on bark, leaves, or leather. The Chinese developed
techniques for making paper from rags, on which modern-day papermaking is based, around 100 A.D.
3. Books and Libraries: Permanent Storage Devices. Religious leaders in Mesopotamia kept the earliest
"books" a collection of rectangular clay tablets, inscribed with cuneiform and packaged in labeled containers
— in their personal "libraries." The Egyptians kept scrolls - sheets of papyrus wrapped around a shaft of
wood. Around 600 B.C., the Greeks began to fold sheets of papyrus vertically into leaves and bind them
together. The dictionary and encyclopedia made their appearance about the same time. The Greeks are also
credited with developing the first truly public libraries around 500 B.C.
4. The First Numbering Systems. The Egyptians struggled with a system that depicted the numbers 1-9 as
vertical lines, the number 10 as a U or circle, the number 100 as a coiled rope, and the number 1,000 as a
lotus blossom. The first numbering systems similar to those in use today were invented between 100 and
200 A.D. by Hindus in India who created a nine-digit numbering system. Around 875 A.D., the concept of
zero was developed. It was through the Arab traders that today's numbering system — 9 digits plus a 0 —
made its way to Europe sometime in the 12th century.
5. The First Calculators. The existence of a counting tool called the abacus, one of the very first information
processors, permitted people to "store" numbers temporarily and to perform calculations using beads strung
on wires. It continued to be an important tool throughout the Middle Ages.
B. The Mechanical Age: 1450 – 1840
1. The First Information Explosion. Johann Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany, invented the movable metal-
type printing process in 1450 and sped up the process of composing pages from weeks to a few minutes.
The printing press made written information much more accessible to the general public by reducing the
time and cost that it took to reproduce written material. The development of book indexes
(alphabetically sorted lists of topics and names) and the widespread use of page numbers also made
information retrieval a much easier task. These new techniques of organizing information would become
valuable later in the development of files and databases.
2. Math by Machine. The first general purpose "computers" were actually people who held the job title
"computer: one who works with numbers." Difficulties in human errors were slowing scientists and
mathematicians in their pursuit of greater knowledge.
3. Slide Rules, the Pascaline and Leibniz's Machine.
a. Slide Rule. In the early 1600s, William Oughtred, an English clergyman, invented the slide rule, a
device that allowed the user to multiply and divide by sliding two pieces of precisely machines and
scribed wood against each other. The slide rule is an early example of an analog computer — an
instrument that measures instead of counts.
b. Pascaline. Blaise Pascal, later to become a famous French mathematician, built one of the first
mechanical computing machines as a teenager, around 1642. It was called a Pascaline, and it used a
series of wheels and cogs to add and subtract numbers.
c. Leibniz's Machine. Gottfried von Leibniz, an important German mathematician and philosopher (he
independently invented calculus at the same time as Newton) was able to improve on Pascal's
machine in the 1670s by adding additional components that made multiplication and division easier.
4. Babbage's Engines
a. The Difference Engine. An eccentric English mathematician named Charles Babbage, frustrated by
mistakes, set his mind to creating a machine that could both calculate numbers and print the results.
In the 1820s, he was able to produce a working model of his first attempt, which he called the
Difference Engine (the name was based on a method of solving mathematical equations called the
"method of differences"). Made of toothed wheels and shafts turned by a hand crank, the machine
could do computations and create charts showing the squares and cubes of numbers. He had plans
for a more complex Difference Engine but was never able to actually build it because of difficulties in
obtaining funds, but he did create and leave behind detailed plans.
b. The Analytical Engine. Designed during the 1830s by Babbage, the Analytical Engine had parts
remarkably similar to modern-day computers. For instance, the Analytical Engine was to have a part
called the "store," which would hold the numbers that had been inputted and the quantities that
resulted after they had been manipulated. It was also to have a part called the "mill" - an area in
which the numbers were actually manipulated. Babbage also planned to use punch cards to direct
the operations performed by the machine
— an idea he picked up from seeing the results that a French weaver named Joseph Jacquard had achieved using
punched cards to automatically control the patterns that would be woven into cloth by a loom.
c. Augusta Ada Byron. She helped Babbage design the instructions that would be given to the machine
on punch cards (for which she has been called the "first programmer") and to describe, analyze, and
publicize his ideas. Babbage eventually was forced to abandon his hopes of building the Analytical
Engine, once again because of a failure to find funding.
C. The Electromechanical Age: 1840 - 1940
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.
1. The Beginnings of Telecommunication. Technologies that form the basis for modern-day
telecommunication systems include:
a. Voltaic Battery. The discovery of a reliable method of creating and storing electricity (with a voltaic
battery) at the end of the 18th century made possible a whole new method of communicating
information.
b. Telegraph. The telegraph, the first major invention to use electricity for communication purposes,
made it possible to transmit information over great distances with great speed.
c. Morse Code. The usefulness of the telegraph was further enhanced by the development of Morse
Code in 1835 by Samuel Morse, an American
from Poughkeepsie, New York. Morse devised a system that broke down information (in this case, the alphabet)
into bits (dots and dashes) that could then be transformed into electrical impulses and transmitted over a wire
(just as today's digital technologies break down information into zeros and ones).
d. Telephone and Radio. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1876. This was followed by
the discovery that electrical waves travel through space and can produce an effect far from the point
at which they originated. These two events led to the invention of the radio by Marconi in 1894.
2. Electromechanical Computing
a. Herman Hollerith and IBM. By 1890, Herman Hollerith, a young man with a degree in mining
engineering who worked in the Census Office in Washington, D.C., had perfected a machine that
could automatically sort census cards into a number of categories using electrical sensing devices to
"read" the punched holes in each card and thus count the millions of census cards and categorize the
population into relevant groups. The company that he founded to manufacture and sell it eventually
developed into the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM).
b. Mark 1. Howard Aiken, a Ph.D. student at Harvard University, decided to try to combine Hollerith's
punched card technology with Babbage's dreams of a general-purpose, "programmable" computing
machine. With funding from IBM, he built a machine known as the Mark I, which used paper tape to
supply instructions(programs) to the machine for manipulating data (input on paper punch cards),
counters to store numbers, and electromechanical relays to help register results.
D. The Electronic Age: 1940 - Present
1. First Tries. In the early 1940s, scientists around the world began to realize that electronic vacuum tubes,
like the type used to create early radios, could be used to replace electromechanical parts.
2. Eckert and Mauchly.
a. The First High-Speed, General-Purpose Computer Using Vacuum Tubes, the ENIAC. John
Mauchly, a physicist, and J. Prosper Eckert, an electrical engineer, at the Moore School of
Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, funded by the U.S. Army, developed
the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) in 1946. It could add, subtract,
multiply and divide in milliseconds and calculate the trajectory of an artillery round in about
20 seconds.
b. The First Stored-Program Computer. A problem with the ENIAC was that the machine had
no means of storing program instructions in its memory - to change the instructions, the
machine would literally have to be rewired. Mauchly and Eckert began to design the EDVAC -
the Electronic Discreet Variable Computer -to address this problem. John von Neumann
joined the team as a consultant and produced an influential report in June 1945 synthesizing
and expanding on Eckert and Mauchly's ideas, which resulted in von Neumann being
credited as the originator of the stored program concept. Maurice Wilkes, a British scientist
at Cambridge University, completed the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic
Calculator) two years before EDVAC was finished, thereby taking the claim of the first stored-
program computer.
c. The First General-Purpose Computer for Commercial Use. Eckert and Mauchly began the
development of a computer called UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer), which they
hoped would be the world's first general-purpose computer for commercial use, but they ran
out of money and sold their company to Remington Rand. A machine called LEO (Lyons
Electronic Office) went into action a few months before UNIVAC and became the world's first
commercial computer.
3. The Generations of Digital Computing. Information technology has traditionally been broken
down into four or five distinct stages or computer generations, each marked by the technology
used to create the main logic element (the electronic component used to store and process
information) used in computers during the period.
