The Evolution Of Computers and Information Technology (Page 1 of 4)
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- April 1, 2020
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Overview of some of the historical developments in information technology from Clay Tablets, the first dawn of the Printing Press up to the presumed singularity future.
Just a tidbit before we begin, it took the telephone 40 years to reach 10 million customers, and fax machines 20 years. Personal Computers, on the other hand, made it to that numbers in as fast as 5 years in every American home. Email took a year to reach 10 million users when first introduced in 1981.
| Facts and Figures on entries (following) doesn’t guarantee sharp accuracy to to numbers, events, persons – so bring with you your grain of salt while reading on. |
4000-1200 BCE
Sumerian Clay Tablet
This clay tablet with cuneiform writing is one of a dozen 4,000-year-old tablets in the collections of the Science Museum of Minnesota. The Science Museum's cuneiform texts record economic transactions in ancient Mesopotamia, located where Iraq is today. Similar tablets were also used to record literary and civil texts, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh or Hammurabi's Code of Cuneiform means "wedge-shaped" referring to the end ... Learn More »
3500-2900 BCE
Hieroglyphics & Phoenitics
The Phoenician alphabet was perhaps the first alphabetic script to be widely-used - the Phoenicians traded around the Mediterranean and beyond, and set up cities and colonies in parts of southern Europe and North Africa - and the origins of most alphabetic writing systems can be traced back to the Phoenician alphabet, including Greek, Etruscan, Latin, Arabic and Hebrew, as well as the... Learn More »
3000 BCE
The Abacus
There is an unproved information, that similar to abacus device was used in Babylonia as early as 2400 BC. The word abacus itself is a Latin word, which comes from Greek άβακασ (board or table). The Greek word probably comes from the Semitic abk, which means sand, dust or to wipe the dust, which can suggest to us, that Greeks accepted the idea of abacus from the Phoenicians (which is the case with the Greek alphabet, inspired... Learn More »
1270 BCE
The First Encyclopedia
Encyclopedias have progressed from the beginning of history in written form, through medieval and modern times in print, and most recently, displayed on computer and distributed via computer networks. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years, although even older glossaries such as the Babylonian Urra=hubullu and the ancient Chinese Erya are also sometimes described as...Learn More »
900 BCE
The First Postal Service
Around the 1800s if news or any type of flyer was to reach the small towns, a carrier traveling from town to town would nail it to a post in front of an official building, where the mayor or sheriff kept their office. Eventually mail sacks would be added to the post and villagers would come into town to check the Post. The practice of communication by written documents carried by an intermediary from one person or place to another almost certainly...Learn More »
530 BCE
First Library In The World
Encyclopedias have progressed from the beginning of history in written form, through medieval and modern times in print, and most recently, displayed on computer and distributed via computer networks. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years, although even older glossaries such as the Babylonian Urra=hubullu and the ancient Chinese Erya are also sometimes described as...Learn More »
100 CE
The First Bound Book
Although not much is known about the Etruscan Gold Book, it is believed to be oldest book in the world as it dates back to around 600 BCE. The entire book is made out of 24 carat gold and consists of six sheets bound together, which have illustrations of a horse-rider, a mermaid, a harp, and soldiers. The book was found sometime in the late 1950s in a tomb uncovered during ...Learn More »
700-800
Arabic Numbers
The Hindu–Arabic system is designed for positional notation in a decimal system. In a more developed form, positional notation also uses a decimal marker (at first a mark over the ones digit but now more usually a decimal point or a decimal comma which separates the ones place from the tenths place), and also a symbol for "these digits recur ad infinitum". In modern usage, this latter symbol is usually a vinculum (a horizontal line placed over...Learn More »
1049
Moveable Type Printing Press
The technique of imprinting multiple copies of symbols or glyphs with a master type punch made of hard metal first developed around 3000 BC in ancient Sumer. These metal punch types can be seen as precursors of the letter punches adapted in later millennia to printing with movable metal type. Cylinder seals were used in Mesopotamia to create an impression on a surface by rolling the seal on wet clay. They were... Learn More »
1450
First Newspaper
Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien is recognized as the world's first newspaper published by Johann Carolus. It is recognized as the world's oldest newspaper and it was published by Johann Carolus, in Strasbourg which was a free imperial city under the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. The World Association of Newspapers, in 2005 acknowledged...Learn More »
1455
Gutenberg Printing Press
Researchers have speculated that Gutenberg actually used a sand-casting system that uses carved sand to create the metal molds. The letters were fashioned to fit together uniformly to create level lines of letters and consistent columns on flat media. Gutenberg’s process would not have worked as seamlessly as it did if he had not made his own ink, devised to affix to metal rather than wood...Learn More »
1621
Slide Rule by Edmund Gunther
At first glance we have here a simple wooden ruler, with many scales of unclear purpose. Don’t be deceived, though: this is a key development in the history of computing devices. Known as Gunter’s Rule, or simply a “Gunter”, this is the invention of Edmund Gunter (1581-1626), a London scholar and contemporary of John Napier, the Scottish inventor of Logarithms. Napier published the first table of logarithms in 1614... Learn More »
1642
First Adding Machine
Pascaline, also called Arithmetic Machine, the first calculator or adding machine to be produced in any quantity and actually used. The Pascaline was designed and built by the French mathematician-philosopher Blaise Pascal between 1642 and 1644. It could only do addition and subtraction, with numbers being entered by manipulating its dials. Pascal invented the machine for his father, a tax collector, so it was the first business...Learn More »
1666
Mechanical Calculator
The polymath Samuel Morland (see biography of Samuel Morland), was a notable English academic, diplomat, spy, inventor and mathematician of the 17th century, credited with early developments in relation to computing, hydraulics and steam power. He is an important person for this site, because in 1660s he devised a total of three calculating machines—one for trigonometry (1663), one for addition and subtraction (1666) and one for multiplication... Learn More »
1714
First Typewriter
Since the fourteenth century, when the idea of writing machines became technologically feasible, more than one hundred prototype models were created by over 50 inventors around the world. Some of the designs received patents and a few of them were even sold to the public briefly without much success. The first such patent was issued to Henry Mill, a prominent English engineer, in 1714. The first...Learn More »
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The Evolution Of Computers and Information Technology (Page 4 of 4)
Overview of some of the historical developments in information technology from Clay Tablets, the first dawn of the Printing Press up to the presumed singularity
The Evolution Of Computers and Information Technology (Page 3 of 4)
Overview of some of the historical developments in information technology from Clay Tablets, the first dawn of the Printing Press up to the presumed singularity
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