Introduction To

Information
Technology
By: Loida J. Vergara
Information Technology in
definition
• Information technology is the technology that
uses computing with high speed communication
links to spread information from one place to
another.
• Computer is a very important component of
information technology
• The world has become “global village” due to
advancement in IT.
What is a Computer?
• An electronic device that is programmed to accept
data, process data into useful information and
store it for later use
• Computer consists of hardware and software
• Software is a set of instructions that tells a
computer what to do
• Hardware is the physical part of a computer E.g.
keyboard , mouse etc
• Relationship between hardware and software
Few Basics
CPU, Memory, I/O, etc.

HARDWARE

Application and
SOFTWARE System Software
Types of Computers
• Analog Computer • Digital Computer
Analog Computers
• An analog computer recognizes data as a
continuous measurement of a physical property.
• It has no state
• Its output is usually displayed on a meter or
graphs.
• Examples are Analog clock, speed of a car,
thermometer etc.
Digital Computers
• It works with numbers.
• They break all types of information into tiny units
and use numbers to represent those pieces of
information.
• Everything is described in two states i.e. either
ON (1) or OFF (0).
• They are very fast and have big memory.
History and Generations of
computers
The six generations of computers are:
– Mechanical era(1623-1900)
– First generation electronic computers(19371953)
– Second generation (1954-1962)
– Third generation (1963-1972)
– Forth generation (1972-1984)
– Fifth generation (1984-1990)
– Sixth generation (1990 -present)
Mechanical Era
• Abacus (3000 BC) It was used to
perform addition, subtraction, division
and multiplication. It consists of
wooden beads and calculation were
performed by moving these beads
properly.
• Napier’s bone (17th century) It was a
cupboard multiplication calculator
invented by john Napier. It was used
to perform difficult multiplication
operations to simple addition of
entries in a table.
• Pascaline (17th century) It was
invented by Blaise Pascal. It was first
mechanical adding machine It had a
series of wheels with teeth which
could be turned using hands.
• Difference Engine and Analytical Engine(1823
and 1833)
It was designed by Charles Babbage
who was English mathematician, engineer,
philosopher and inventor. He originated the
concept of the programmable computer. A
general purpose computer controlled by a list
of instructions.
• Punched cards (1890) They were able to
read information that which have been
punched into the cards automatically.
First Generation Electronic
computers
• First generation computers were used during 1942-
1955 .
• They were based on Vacuum Tube which was a glass
(tube) that controlled and amplified the electronic
signals
• Consume more power with limited performance High
cost
• Uses assembly language –to prepare programs. These
were translated into machine level language for
execution.
• Fixed point arithmetic was used
• 100 to 1000 fold increase in speed relative to the
earlier mechanical and relay based
electromechanical technology
• Punched cards and paper tape were invented to
feed programs and data and to get results.
• Magnetic tape / magnetic drum were used as
secondary memory
• Mainly used for scientific computations.
• Examples are: UNIVAC, Havard Mark 1, ENIAC
etc.
• UNIVAC • ENIAC
Second Generation (1955 – 1964)
• Bell Lab invented the transistor – function like vacuum
tubes but smaller, lower power consumption, more
reliable.
• Transistor is a small device that transfer electronic
signals across a resister
• Lower cost
• Magnetic core memories were used as main memory
which is a random-access non-volatile memory
• Magnetic tapes and magnetic disks were used as
secondary memory
• Hardware for floating point arithmetic operations was
developed.
• Index registers were introduced which increased
flexibility of programming.
• High level languages such as FORTRAN, COBOL etc
were used -Compilers were developed to translate the
high-level program into corresponding assembly
language program which was then translated into
machine language.
• Separate input-output processors were developed that
could operate in parallel with CPU.
• Punched cards continued during this period also.
• 1000 fold increase in speed.
• Examples are: TRADIC, IBM 704, LARC etc.
• TRADIC • IBM 704
Third Generation (1963 – 1971)
• Jack Kilby developed Integrated Circuit (IC)
• An IC combined several electronic computers on a small
silicon chip IBM introduced System/360 –a highly
configurable, highly backward compatible, mainframe
computer system.
• Small Scale Integration and Medium Scale Integration
technology were implemented in CPU, I/O processors etc.
• Smaller & better performance
• Comparatively lesser cost
• Faster processors
• In the beginning magnetic core memories were used. Later
they were replaced by semiconductor memories (RAM &
ROM)
• Introduced microprogramming Microprogramming, parallel
processing (pipelining, multiprocessor system etc),
multiprogramming, multi-user system (time shared system)
etc were introduced.
• Operating system software were introduced
• Cache and virtual memories were introduced
• High level languages were standardized by ANSI e.g.. ANSI
FORTRAN, ANSI COBOL etc
• Database management, multi-user application, online
systems like closed loop process control, airline reservation,
interactive query systems, automatic industrial control etc
emerged during this period.
• Examples are: INTEL 4004, IBM SYSTEM/360 etc.
• INTEL 4004 • IBM SYSTEM 360
Fourth Generation (1972 – 1984)
• Microprocessors were introduced as CPU–
Complete processors and large section of main
memory could be implemented in a single chip
• Tens of thousands of transistors can be placed in
a single chip (VLSI design implemented)
• CRT screen, laser & ink jet printers, scanners etc
were developed.
• Semiconductor memory chips were used as the
main memory.
• Secondary memory was composed of hard disks
–Floppy disks & magnetic tapes were used for
backup memory
• Parallelism, pipelining cache memory and virtual
memory were applied in a better way
• LAN and WANS were developed (where desktop
work stations interconnected)
• Introduced C language and Unix OS
• Introduced Graphical User Interface
• Less power consumption
• High performance, lower cost and very compact
• Much increase in the speed of operation
• Examples are Apple Macintosh and IBM PC
• Apple Macintosh • IBM pc
Fifth Generation (1983 – 1990)
• Computers based on artificial intelligence are available
• Computers use extensive parallel processing, multiple pipelines,
multiple processors etc
• Massive parallel machines and extensively distributed system
connected by communication networks fall in this category.
• Introduced ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration) technology – Intel’s
Pentium 4 microprocessor contains 55 million transistors millions of
components on a single IC chip.
• Superscalar processors, Vector processors, SIMD processors, 32
bit micro controllers and embedded processors, Digital Signal
Processors (DSP) etc have been developed.
• Memory chips up to 1 GB, hard disk drives up to 180 GB and
optical disks up to 27 GB are available (still the capacity is
increasing)
• Object oriented language like JAVA suitable for internet
programming has been developed.
• Portable note book computers introduced
• Storage technology advanced – large main memory and
disk storage available
• Introduced World Wide Web. (and other existing
applications like e-mail, e Commerce, Virtual
libraries/Classrooms, multimedia applications etc.)
• New operating systems developed – Windows
95/98/XP/…, LINUX, etc.
• Got hot pluggable features –which enable a failed
component to be replaced with a new one without the
need to shutdown the system, allowing the uptime of the
system to be very high.
• The recent development in the application of internet is
the Grid technology which is still in its upcoming stage.
• LINUX • Windows 98
Sixth Generation Computers (1990
– till date)
• Some inventions of the time are WWW, HTML,
HTTP, Web TV, java, DVD, iPod, Youtube etc
• Examples are: iMac , Sun ultra workstation etc
Computers System and its
Components
• Input Devices
• Output devices
• System Unit
• Storage devices
• Communication devices
Input Devices
• The devices that are used to enter data and
instructions into the computers
• Most commonly used input devices are Keyboard
and Mouse
Output Devices
• Output devices are used to display processed
data to the user Most commonly used output
devices are Monitor, Printer and speakers.
• Hard Copy is paper copy – tangible.
• Soft copy is intangible.
System Unit
• Its a box that contains different components of a
computer system.
• All electronic components in the system unit are
connected to motherboard
• Important components of system units are:
Central processing Unit(Processor) Memory
Storage Devices
• These are used to store data permanently
even when the computer is turned off
• It is non volatile memory
• Examples: Floppy Disk, Hard disk, CD
ROM
Communication Devices
• A communication device is a hardware
component that enables a computer to send and
receive data, instructions and information to and
from one or more computers.
• A widely used communication device is Modem
• Wired media
• Wireless media
Modulation and Demodulation
• Modulation Conversion from Digital
signals to Analog signals.
• Demodulation Conversion from
Analog signals to Digital signals.
Computers in society
• Home
• Education
• Small business
• Industry
• Government
• Health care
• Banking
• Communication
• Police Department
• Retail
Information Processing Cycle
• Data
A collection of raw facts and figures is called
data. It may consist of numbers, characters,
symbols or pictures etc.

• Information
Processed data is called information. It is
more meaningful than data.
Information Processing Cycle
• Data is collected and given to the computer
for processing.
• Computer process data to the required
information.
• The information is given to the user as output.
• Information is stored in the computer for
further use.
Advantages of Computers
• Speed
• Reliability
• Consistency
• Storage
• Communication
Disadvantages of computers
• Violation of privacy
• Public safety
• Impact on labor force
• Health risks
• Impact on environment
THANK YOU !