INTRODUCTION TO ICT

1. Introduction to ICT
Lecture 01

2. Reference Material
• An Invitation to computer Sc. 2nd Edition by G. Michael, Schneder, Sarabase
• Information Technology Concepts by Nain Kanwal

3. Topics
1. Definition of computer
2. Earliest computer
3. Computer History
4. Computer Generations

4. Computer
• The word computer comes from the word “compute”, which means, “to
calculate”
• Thereby, a computer is an electronic device that can perform arithmetic
operations at high speed
• A computer is also called a data processor because it can store, process, and
retrieve data whenever desired

5. Definition of Computer
• A computer is an electronic device, operating under the control of
instructions stored in its own memory that can accept data (input), process
the data according to specified rules, produce information (output), and store
the information for future use.

6. Functionalities of a Computer
• Any digital computer carries out five functions in gross terms:
• Takes data as input
• Stores the data/instructions in its memory and use them when required
• Processes the data and converts it into useful information
• Generates the output
• Controls all the above four steps

7. Data Processing
• The activity of processing data using a computer is called data processing
• Data is raw material used as input and information is processed data
obtained as output of data processing

8. Data vs Information
• Data:
• Any collection of raw and unprocessed facts such as reports, inventory figures, test
scores, names, addresses, photographs, drawings and maps
• Data may be numerical and/or non-numerical
• Information:
• Data that has already been manipulated and transformed into something useful or the
result of processing by a computer

9. Characteristics of Computers
• Automatic: Given a job, computer can work on it automatically without
human interventions
• Speed: Computer can perform data processing jobs very fast, usually
measured in microseconds (10-6), nanoseconds (10-9), and picoseconds (10-12)
• Accuracy: Accuracy of a computer is consistently high and the degree of its
accuracy depends upon its design. Computer errors caused due to incorrect
input data or unreliable programs are often referred to as Garbage-In-
Garbage-Out (GIGO)

10. Characteristics of Computers
• Diligence: Computer is free from monotony, tiredness, and lack of
concentration. It can continuously work for hours without creating any error
and without grumbling
• Versatility: Computer is capable of performing almost any task, if the task
can be reduced to a finite series of logical steps
• Power of Remembering: Computer can store and recall any amount of
information because of its secondary storage capability. It forgets or looses
certain information only when it is asked to do so

11. Characteristics of Computers
• No I.Q.: A computer does only what it is programmed to do. It cannot take
its own decision in this regard
• No Feelings: Computers are devoid of emotions. Their judgement is based
on the instructions given to them in the form of programs that are written
by us (human beings)

12. Earliest Computer
• Originally calculations were computed by humans, whose job title was computers.
• These human computers were typically engaged in the calculation of a mathematical
expression.
• The calculations of this period were specialized and expensive, requiring years of
training in mathematics.
• The first use of the word "computer“ was recorded in 1613, referring to a person
who carried out calculations, or computations, and the word continued to be used in
that sense until the middle of the 20th century.

13. Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
• Charles Babbage was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and
mechanical engineer.
• Creator of the Analytical Engine - the first general-purpose
digital computer (1833)
• Babbage: the father of computing
• The Analytical Engine was not built until 1943 (in the
form of the Harvard Mark I)
Charles Babbage

14. The Analytical Engine- 1833
• Invented by Charles Babbage
• It is the first mechanical, digital, general-purpose
computer.
• Was crank-driven
• Could store instructions
• Could perform mathematical calculations
• Could store information permanently in punched cards
Analytical Engine

15. Augusta Ada Byron (1815-52)
• First Computer Programmer
• In 1840, Augusta Ada Byron suggests to Babbage that he
use the binary system.
• She writes programs for the Analytical Engine.
Augusta Ada Byron

16. Jacquard Loom
• The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph-Marie Jacquard
in 1801.
• It is an automatic loom controlled by punched
cards.

17. Punched Cards - 1801
• Initially had no relationship with computers
• Their value for storing computer-related information was later realized by the
early computer builders
• Punched cards were replaced my magnetic storage only in the early 1950s

18. Protests Against Jacquard’s Invention
• Hand weavers saw the automatic loom as a threat to their livelihood
• They burned several of the new machines
• A few weavers even physically assaulted Jacquard

19. Vacuum Tube - 1904
• John Fleming, an English Physicist, developed the very first one
• The vacuum tube is a glass tube that has its gas removed,
creating a vacuum.
• Vacuum tubes contain electrodes for controlling electron flow
and were used in early computers as a switch or an amplifier
• These tubes have now been almost completely replaced by more
reliable and less costly transistors

20. ABC - 1939
• Attanasoff-Berry Computer
• John Attanasoff & Clifford Berry at Iowa State College
• It was the world first electronic digital computing device.
• The first computer that used binary numbers
instead of decimal
• Helped grad students in solving simultaneous
linear equations

21. Harvard Mark 1 - 1943
• Howard Aiken of Harvard University
• The first program controlled machine
• Included all the ideas proposed by Babbage for the Analytical Engine
• The last famous electromechanical computer

22. ENIAC – 1946
• Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer
• World’s first large-scale, general-purpose electronic computer
• Built by John Mauchly & John Echert at the University
of Pennsylvania

23. ENIAC – 1946
• Developed for military applications
• 5,000 operations/sec, 19000 tubes, 30 ton
• 9’ x 80’ (feet's)
• 150 kilowatts: Used to dim the lights in the City of Philadelphia down when
it ran

24. Transistor - 1947
• Invented by Shockly, Bardeen, and Brattain at the Bell Labs in the US
• Compared to vacuum tubes, it offered:
• much smaller size
• better reliability
• much lower power consumption
• much lower cost
• All modern computers are made of miniaturized transistors

25. EDVAC – 1948
• Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer
• Built by Echert & Mauchly, included many design ideas proposed by Von
Neumann
• The first electronic computer design to incorporate a program stored entirely
within its memory
• First computer to use Magnetic Tape for storing programs. Before this,
computers needed to be re-wired each time a new program was to be run

26. Floppy Disk - 1950
• Invented at the Imperial University in Tokyo by Yoshiro Nakamats
• Provided faster access to programs and data as compared with magnetic tape

27. Compiler - 1951
• Grace Hopper of US Navy develops the very first high-level language
compiler
• Before the invention of this compiler, developing a computer program was
tedious and prone to errors
• A compiler translates a high-level language (that is easy to understand for
humans) into a language that the computer can understand

28. UNIVAC 1 - 1951
• UNIVersal Automatic Computer
• Echert & Mauchly Computer Company
• First computer designed for commercial apps
• First computer that could not only manipulate numbers but text data as well
• Max speed: 1905 operations/sec
• Cost: US$1,000,000
• 5000 tubes. 943 cu ft. 8 tons. 100 kilowatts
• Between 1951-57, 48 were sold

29. BASIC - 1965
• Beginner All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code
• Developed by Thomas Kurtz & John Kemeny at Dartmouth College
• The first programming language designed for the non-techies
• The grand-mother of the most popular programming language in the world
today – Visual BASIC

30. ARPANET - 1969
• ARPANET was developed under the direction of the U.S. Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
• A network of networks
• Became the foundation of today Internet
• A network of around 60,000 computers developed by the US Dept of
Defense to facilitate communications between research organizations and
universities

31. Intel 4004 - 1971
• The world’s first microprocessor
• Microprocessor: A complete general purpose CPU (4-bit) on a chip
• Speed: 750 kHz

32. Altair 8800 - 1975
• The commercially available 1st PC
• Based on the Intel 8080
• Cost $397
• Had 256 bytes of memory

33. Cray 1 - 1976
• The first commercial supercomputer
• Supercomputers are state-of-the-art machines designed to perform
calculations as fast as the current technology allows
• Used to solve extremely complex tasks: weather prediction, simulation of
atomic explosions; aircraft design; movie animation
• Cray 1 could do 167 million calculations in a second; the current state-of
the-art machines can do many trillion (1012) calculations per second

34. IBM PC & MS DOS - 1981
• IBM PC: The tremendously popular PC
• MS DOS: The tremendously popular operating system that came bundled
with the IBM PC

35. TCP/IP Protocol - 1982
• Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
• The communications protocol used by the computer networks, including the
Internet
• A communication protocol is a set of rules that governs the flow of
information over a network

36. Apple Macintosh - 1984
• The first popular, user-friendly, WIMP-based PC
• Based on the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing Device)

37. World Wide Web -1989
• Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, invented the World Wide Web (WWW)
in 1989, while working at the European Center for Nuclear Energy Research
(CERN) in Geneva.
• At 1993 - The 1st major browser “Mosaic” was developed at the National
Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign

38. Deep Blue -vs- Kasparov - 1997
• In 1997 Deep Blue, a supercomputer designed by IBM, beat Gary Kasparov,
the World Chess Champion
• It could analyze up to 300 billion chess moves in three minutes
• That computer was exceptionally fast, did not get tired or bored. It just kept
on analyzing the situation and kept on searching until it found the perfect
move from its list of possible moves

39. Mobile Phone-Computer
• A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computing device small
enough to hold and operate in the hand
• Can do whatever an Internet-capable computer can, plus can function as a
regular phone
• First consumer device formed by the fusion of computing and wireless
telecommunication