Theory Of ICT

Professional Practice

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 Topics to be covered
• Learn about the contributions of several pioneers in
the computing field
• Compare life before and after the advent of personal
computers and the Internet
• Identify significant trends in the history of the
computing field
• Ethics and Ethical Theories

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 Text Book References for this module:

Quinn, Michael. 2017. Ethics for the Information Age. 7th

Edition. New York: Pearson.
Kizza, J.M. 2013. Ethical and Social Issues in the Information
Age. 5th Edition. London: Springer.

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 Advances in the Past Two
Decades
From time immemorial, human beings have been trying
to make their lives easy and worth living through the
invention of gadgets.

What are some of these gadgets and what impact have

they had on society?
Make a note of some of the gadgets you think of.

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 Technology and Values
• Dynamic between people, technology
• People adopt technology
• Technology changes society
• Using technology can change people
• Our experiences physically change our brains (e.g.,
London taxi drivers)
• Experiences with technology can have psychological
effects, too (e.g., effects of dependency on cell phones)
• Technologies solve problems, but may create new problems
• Automobile
• Refrigerator
• Low-cost international communication

As a result of this some societies may choose not to adopt

new technologies (e.g. the Amish)
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 Milestones in
Computing

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 Aids to Manual Calculating
Some of the aids to manual calculating dating back to
ancient times are the
• Tablet (Clay, wax tablets, Slates, Paper tablets)

• Abacus (Rods or wires in rectangular frame, Lines drawn

on a counting board)

• Mathematical tables (Tables of logarithms, Income tax

tables)

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 Early Mechanical
Calculators
• Calculators of Pascal and Leibniz (17th century)
• Worked with whole numbers
• Unreliable

• Arithmometer of de Colmar (19th century)

• Took advantage of advances in machine tools
• Adopted by insurance companies

• Printing calculator of Scheutzes (19th century)

• Used method of differences pioneered by Babbage
• Adopted by Dudley Observatory in New York
• Completed astronomical calculations
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Social Change  Market for
Calculators
The late 1800s in America (known as the gilded
age) saw rapid industrialization, economic
expansion and a concentration of corporate
power.
These larger corporate organizations had multiple
layers of management and multiple locations.

What impact do you think this would have had on

access to information?
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 Calculator Adoption –
Societal Impact
• Adding and calculating machines were being produced.
• The adoption of mechanical calculators led to the “de-
skilling” and “feminization” of bookkeeping.
• People of average ability became quite productive
• Calculators 6 faster than adding by hand
• Wages dropped
• Women replaced men

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 Record Keeping

• Store owners of late 1800s faced problems – Cash

register
• Keeping accurate sales records for department stores
• Preventing embezzlement from clerks
• Larger corporations and organizations had greater
volumes of information and had to find efficient ways of
storing and processing the information.
• Punched cards
• One record per card
• Cards could be sorted into groups, allowing
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computation of subtotals by categories
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 Data-processing systems

Machines based around punched cards: card punches, card

verifiers, card tabulators, card sorters, and alphabetizers.
These devices were used to create data-processing systems:
• Data-processing system
• Receives input data
• Performs one or more calculations
• Produces output data
• Punched cards
• Stored input data and intermediate results
• Stored output
• On most sophisticated systems, also stored programs
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 Precursors of Commercial
Computers
• Atanasoff-Berry Computer: vacuum tubes
• ENIAC: externally programmed with wires
• EDVAC: program stored in memory
• Small-Scale Experimental Machine: CRT memory

The first commercial computers:

• Remington-Rand - UNIVAC
• IBM
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 Programming Languages

• Assembly language
• Symbolic representations of machine instructions
• Programs just as long as machine language programs
• FORTRAN
• First higher-level language (shorter programs)
• Designed for scientific applications
• COBOL
• U.S. Department of Defense standard
• Designed for business applications
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 Time-Sharing Systems and
BASIC
• Time-Sharing Systems
• Divide computer time among multiple users
• Users connect to computer via terminals
• Cost of ownership spread among more people
• Gave many more people access to computers
• BASIC
• Developed at Dartmouth College
• Simple, easy-to-learn programming language
• Popular language for teaching programming
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 New Developments
• Transistor – replacement for the vacuum tube
• Semiconductor
• Integrated circuit
• Semiconductor containing transistors, capacitors, and resistors
• Microprocessor - Computer inside a semiconductor chip
• Invented at Intel
Microprocessors made it possible to integrate computers into everyday
devices.
What devices (apart from computers) are you familiar with, that
contain microprocessors?
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 Milestones in
Networking

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 Electricity and
Electromagnetism
• In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries scientists
began to study electricity in earnest.
• Alessandro Volta made a key breakthrough when he
discovered that electricity could be generated
chemically. He created the world’s first battery.
• In 1820 Danish physicist Christian Oersted discovered
that an electric current creates a magnetic field.
• Five years later British electrician William Sturgeon
constructed an electromagnet.
All of this was the precursor to the telegraph.
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 Telegraph and Telephone

• Samuel Morse worked on the idea of the telegraph

during most of the 1830s and in 1838 patented his
design of the telegraph machine.
• A drawback – it could transmit only one message at a
time

• Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell recognized the

limitations of the telegraph and developed the harmonic
or musical telegraph.
• He together with Thomas A. Watson succeeded in
transmitting speech Revised:
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 Typewriter and Teletype

• Americans Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden,

and Samuel Soule patented the first typewriter.

• In 1908 Charles and Howard Krum succeeded in

developing a modified typewriter to print a
message transmitted over a telegraph line – this
was known as teletype.

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 Radio and Television

• With the developments in electricity and magnetism came

further developments in electromagnetic waves being
transmitted which eventually developed into the radio.
• The power of radio as a medium of mass communication was
demonstrated when Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre
put on a one-hour dramatization of War of the Worlds and
many listeners panicked.
• Broadcasting video over a wire began in 1884 with the
invention of an electromechanical television by Paul Nipkow.
• The first completely electronic television transmission was
made in 1927 by Philo Farnsworth.
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 Remote Computing
• Researcher George Stibitz with the help of Samuel Williams built the
Complex Number Calculator. Stibitz then made a teletype machine the
input/output device for the Complex Number Calculator which meant he
could operate it remotely.
• ARPANET – The Department of Defense created the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA) with the idea of developing a global computer
network that would facilitate the exchange of programs and data.
• Circuit-switched telephone networks did not provide a good foundation
for this whereas packet-switched networks did.
• This was how the ARPANET came into being. Every computer on the
network would have the ability to make decisions on how message
traffic should be routed. Eventually software was created enabling
email messages to be sent and received by ARPANET computers.
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 Internet

• Robert Kahn developed the concept of open architecture

networking and together with Vinton Cerf designed the
TCP/IP protocol that would support it.
• Broadband – high-speed Internet connection. Broad
band speeds vary widely among highly developed
countries. Broadband leaders are currently South Korea
with an average of 22.2 megabits per second.
• Wireless Networks – Cell phones allow telephone calls to
be made over radio links. Smartphones can provide a
variety of services.
• The social impact of Revised:
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phones has
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 Questions to consider

What are some of the advances in

technology in recent times?

How have these advances impacted society?

How have cell phones impacted your

community?
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 Milestones in
Information Retrieval

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 Developments in Writing

• As civilizations expanded, writing systems were developed

to allow the recording and communication of information.
• The first true alphabet was developed by the Greeks.
• Important information was recorded on papyrus scrolls.
• The development of the codex was a significant advance in
information storage and retrieval.
• In the late Middle Ages, explorers brought back from China
the technology for manufacturing paper in mass quantities.
What impact do you think this had on the storage and
retrieval of information?
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 Gutenberg’s Printing Press
• In 1436 Johannes Gutenberg began work on a
printing press that could imprint pages using
movable metal type rather than wood blocks.
This was soon adopted by other printers.
• The printing press made possible the
establishment of newspapers.

What impact do you think this had on society?

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 Graphical User Interface

What was Vannevar Bush’s contribution to the

development of Information Retrieval?
• Alan Kay ( a founding member of Xerox Palo Alto
Research Centre) played a leading role in developing
the Alto’s (a small minicomputer designed to be used
by a single person) graphical user interface that
responded to the point, click and drag operations of a
mouse.
• The Xerox PARC team also created Ethernet, which
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 The World Wide Web

• Some of the concepts related to the world wide

web are:
• Hypertext
• Web Browser
• Search engine

Who is Tim Berners-Lee and what is his

connection with the World wide web?
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