subject: Information Technology - The Beginning [print this page] When people hear the words "Information Technology," the first things that come to mind are computers and the Internet. It may also bring up words like "network," "intranet," "server," "firewall," "security," as well as more arcane expressions such as "router," "T-1," "Ethernet," or the mysterious and exotic-sounding "VoIP" (pronounced "voyp").
In fact, information technology is all of these things, and more. It's hardly new, however. Information technology is as old as the brain itself, if you think of the brain as an information processor. As far as I.T. being a science, even that goes back as far as the earliest attempts to communicate and store information.
And that is essentially what information technology is: the communication and storage of information, along with the ability to process and make use of the information stored. In this chapter, we'll begin with a brief history of I.T., what it comprises today, and the different major types of I.T. systems available today.
A Short History of Information Technology
As human societies have grown in size and complexity, so has the need to collect, store and transmit information. While it could be argued that brains represent a form of "bio-information technology," Greek word "Tektra" - from which we get the word "technology" - really refers to scientific or mechanical knowledge, particularly that which involves the use of tools. Therefore, we'll begin our journey with humans first attempts to record and transmit knowledge through mechanical means.
The Neolithic Period and the Bronze Age
We might not have thought of it as "information technology" several thousand years ago when we as a species were painting animals on cave walls. But in fact that may be exactly what it was.
Using a combination of tools that included manganese "crayons" and clay that was colored with various pigments, early humans left these images on the walls of a cave near Lascaux, France and on cliffs in the Algerian Sahara.
These have been dated as being approximately 18,000 and 8,000 years old respectively. Unfortunately, there is no way to be certain exactly what message was being communicated (a problem our own descendants 15,000 years from now may very well encounter from what we leave behind!)
Since the images depict animals that were commonly hunted at the time, and given the importance of game animals to a hunting-gathering culture, it's possible that such images were attempts to present information about such game, or part of a rite designed to ensure a successful hunt.
The invention of writing systems - including pictograms such as hieroglyphics, alphabetic writing and "syllabic" systems - seems to have taken place almost at the same time as the development of agriculture. Agriculture introduced such formerly unknown concepts as land ownership, advanced trade and the accumulation of wealth, which in turn led to more complex societal structures.
As you might expect, this necessitated more detailed and efficient record-keeping. Alphabetic writing has a substantial advantage over pictograms (hieroglyphs), because a relatively limited number of symbols (letters) can be used over and over in infinite combination to communicate nearly anything. (As you will see later, modern I.T. uses only two of these symbols!)
