History of Information Technology

Overview of Information Technology

Digital Information Technologies (DIT), also known as Information Technology (IT), have come to influence virtually every aspect of life in the $21\text{st century}$. This field encompasses how people communicate with friends, complete schoolwork, find information, purchase goods, and perform high-paying roles in the modern economy. IT has evolved from a specialized tool to a fundamental life skill, with students now expected to understand the essentials of using computers to improve their personal and professional effectiveness. Information technology refers to the use of computers and networking technologies to store, process, and retrieve information.

Historically, before the widespread advent of computers around the year $1990$, information was predominantly paper-based. It was published in newspapers or magazines and stored physically in libraries or stacks of files in offices. Sharing information was difficult and inefficient; businesses lacked easy access to data needed to understand customer patterns and take corrective actions. Personal memories, such as family photographs, were kept in physical albums that could not be easily distributed. Since the beginning of the $21\text{st century}$, the birth of the IT field has been defined by the connection of computers through the Internet. Today, IT investments—including hardware, networks, software, and personnel—represent one of the largest expenses for most organizations.

Real-World Application: The Department of Motor Vehicles

The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) serves as a prominent example of how IT impacts daily life. When a citizen registers a vehicle, a clerk records specific data, such as the vehicle make, model, and Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), into a computer. This data is cleaned, processed, and transmitted across multiple computers to be stored in a data center. Data centers are specialized warehouses optimized to run thousands of computers; a typical center can consume power equivalent to a small town and provides the backend applications for services like social media, maps, and searches.

In the year $2020$, there were approximately $276,000,000$ vehicles registered in the United States. To manage this volume, the state government invests millions of dollars annually in DMV computerization. This allows the DMV to verify that a seller is the legal owner of a car, enables police officers to check licenses and registrations instantly to maintain road safety, and facilitates automated reminders for annual registration payments. To achieve this, the DMV employs sophisticated hardware, complex networks, and software. These systems are maintained by highly trained and well-compensated IT professionals. Notably, IT systems are not static; they evolve based on changing information needs and security requirements.

Blurring the Personal and Professional IT Divide

Until approximately the year $2015$, there was a clear distinction between personal electronic devices, such as cell phones, and office IT systems like PCs. However, with the rise of powerful smartphones and affordable mobile Internet, this distinction is largely disappearing. Modern employees expect business applications to be as user-friendly as consumer apps, and they are often responsive round-the-clock from both work and home environments.

In the gig economy, companies like Uber, DoorDash, Amazon, and FedEx utilize their workers' personal mobile devices as integral parts of the company's IT system. Drivers use personal phones to select drives, navigate to locations, communicate with passengers, and process payments. This trend was further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent work-from-home movement, which integrated professional tasks deeper into personal digital environments.

The Dawn of Modern Computing: Babbage and the ENIAC

The history of IT is primarily the history of computer hardware and software development. Charles Babbage is credited with conceptualizing the first mechanical computer in the $1820\text{s}$. Over a century later, in $1946$, a team at the University of Pennsylvania publicly reported the first programmable, general-purpose computer: the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC). The ENIAC was a massive machine, weighing $30\,\text{tons}$ and occupying $1800\,\text{square feet}$ of space.

The ENIAC featured many components recognized by modern programmers: it could read input data, hold information in memory, step through programming instructions, create and call sub-programs, loop through code, and print output. However, it lacked modern peripherals like monitors and keyboards. Programmers had to write instructions into punched paper cards, a process that required weeks of coding and debugging. The development of the ENIAC was funded by the US Army to compute firing tables during World War II. Firing tables are used to provide gun operators with optimal specifications to hit a target, accounting for terrain, weapon wear-and-tear, and ammunition type. While built for a military purpose, the ENIAC's general computing abilities captured public imagination.

Structural Software: The Operating System (OS)

In the era of the ENIAC, instructions were hard-coded by experts, often requiring days to rewrite punch cards for repeated tasks. Eventually, these shared tasks were aggregated into operating systems. An Operating System (OS) is considered the brain of the computer, controlling and coordinating all parts of the system, including the mouse, keyboard, display monitor, motherboard, and storage drives.

Operating systems function similarly to a school's "front office." Just as a front office handles student absences, schedules, and grades while protecting privacy, an OS receives inputs from users and applications and coordinates actions to present the appropriate output. OS evolution was rapid throughout the $1960\text{s}$ and $1970\text{s}$. The principle guiding these developments was often to achieve the "minimum number of keystrokes for the maximum effort."

The History and Legacy of Unix

In $1971$, AT&T Bell Labs created the Unix operating system. It was invented by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Unix began as Thompson's attempt to support a game called Space Travel on office machines. Because it initially supported only one user, it was nicknamed the "Un-multiplexed Information and Computing Service" (Unics), which was eventually shortened to Unix. The first edition of Unix consisted of only $4200\,\text{lines of code}$ and included popular games like Blackjack, which spurred its adoption.

Unix's widespread use was also driven by economic factors. In $1956$, AT&T settled with the federal government to maintain its monopoly on long-distance telephony on the condition that it would not sell products unrelated to telephony. Consequently, AT&T shared Unix's source code with various organizations. One popular adaptation was Berkeley Systems Distribution (BSD) Unix, created at UC Berkeley. The BSD license allowed modifications without requiring them to be released back to the community, making it attractive for commercial use. Today, Apple's MacOS and iOS trace their lineage to BSD Unix. Another variant, Linux, was created in $1991$ by Linis Torvalds at the University of Helsinki. Unix and its variants now power the majority of computers worldwide, including smartphones.

The Personal Computer (PC) Revolution

Until the early $1980\text{s}$, computers were too expensive for individual ownership. In $1981$, IBM entered the market with the IBM PC, priced at $1565\,\text{dollars}$—significantly cheaper than competing models. The IBM PC was developed in Boca Raton, Florida, by a team that utilized an "open design," meaning components from various vendors could work together. This led to the use of Intel processors and Microsoft's Disk Operating System (DOS). DOS was a command-line interface that required manual typing, but it successfully sparked the PC revolution.

By the mid-$1980\text{s}$, user-friendly software appeared. In $1985$, Microsoft launched Windows, a Graphical User Interface (GUI) based operating system. Microsoft also introduced Excel in $1985$ (led by Doug Klunder) and Word in $1989$ (led by Charles Simonyi). These applications transformed computers from business-only tools into home devices for writing, financial management, communication, and entertainment. Competition among vendors drove costs down. By the year $2022$, Microsoft was valued at $2 \times 10^{12}\,\text{dollars}$, Intel at $130 \times 10^9\,\text{dollars}$, and IBM at $118 \times 10^9\,\text{dollars}$. Currently, between $250,000,000$ and $350,000,000$ PCs are sold annually.

Networking, the Internet, and the World Wide Web

Information exchange is a fundamental human activity. On $\text{December 9, 1968}$, Douglas Engelbart gave the "Mother of All Demos," a $90\,\text{minute}$ presentation showcasing networking, GUIs, hypertext, video conferencing, and the computer mouse. This demo introduced nearly all networked computer technology used today. Networking is driven by the "network effect," where the value of a network increases as more members join it. By $1981$, core networking technologies were specified.

The Internet is a global network of connected computers. The information shared across this network is called the World Wide Web. The Internet is constructed by linking Local Area Networks (LANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs). LANs connect computers within a single building (like a home or school) to share files and printers. WANs connect these smaller networks over large geographic areas, such as states or countries, and are typically operated by providers like Verizon, Frontier, or Spectrum. In Florida, universities operate a specific WAN called the Florida Lambda Rail. Historically, five networks transformed the US between $1870$ and $1920$: water, sewage, electricity, roads, and telephones; the information network was added to this list by the end of the $20\text{th century}$.

The Mobile Revolution and Moore's Law

The ability to shrink computers to the size of a phone led to the mobile revolution. Smartphones are powered by operating systems like Apple's iOS (a version of Unix) and Google's Android (based on Linux). This cycle of rapid technological advancement is described by Moore’s Law, named after Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. The law states that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles every $2\,\text{years}$.

A transistor is a tiny electronic device used to store and process info, with sizes measured in nanometers (one millionth the width of a human hair). In $1970$, a cutting-edge chip had around $2000$ transistors. By $2020$, the Apple M1 chip contained $114,000,000,000$ transistors. This progress has made technology accessible globally, where even street vendors in developing nations own mobile phones, and audio/video apps allow for instant global communication.

Women in Technology: Historical Contributions and Systemic Bias

Women have played foundational roles in computing, though they have often lacked recognition. Ada Lovelace is regarded as the world's first programmer. During the $1940\text{s}$ and $1950\text{s}$, women were the dominant demographic in programming, originally performing complex military math by hand and being referred to as "computers." Grace Hopper, a computing pioneer, once compared programming to planning a dinner, noting that it required the patience and detail-oriented nature that women naturally possessed.

However, as programming became more lucrative and prestige grew, men began to replace women. Society developed a "brilliance bias," often stereotyping brilliance as a male trait. Tech companies began using hiring metrics that favored male-dominated hobbies. For example, the Gild platform used data suggesting that visiting a specific Japanese manga site predicted strong coding skills, failing to account for the fact that women perform $75\%$ of the world's unpaid care work and may not have the spare time to engage in such forums.

Retention is also a major issue: $40\%$ of women leave tech companies after $10\,\text{years}$, compared to $17\%$ of men. Research by the Center for Talent Innovation suggests they leave not for family reasons, but due to workplace conditions, undermining behavior from managers, being passed over for promotion, and feeling stalled in their careers.

Glossary: Chapter Terms and Definitions

• Android: Mobile OS developed by Google and available as open-source software.
• Computer: A programmable computing device capable of receiving input, manipulating data, and outputting information.
• Computer Engineer: Individual that focuses on the research, design, and development of computer hardware and systems.
• Data: Representation of facts in a formalized manner suitable for communication, interpretation, or processing by humans or by automatic means.
• Data Center: Centralized location of servers and networking equipment that facilitates processing and storage of data.
• Disk Operating System (DOS): Early user-oriented operating system created from a partnership between Microsoft and IBM.
• Dumb Terminal: A simple device consisting of a monitor and keyboard meant to facilitate communication to a separate computing device.
• Gig Economy: A labor market characterized by short term employment, typically involving an intermediary platform.
• Graphical User Interface (GUI): Visual medium of interacting with computers.
• Hardware: The physical and often modular components of a computer system.
• Information Technology: Any equipment or system responsible for data manipulation; also refers to the disciplines of science and engineering that interact with these systems and data.
• IOS: Mobile OS developed by Apple, used in iPhones.
• IT Personnel: Technically proficient individuals capable of optimizing the use of technological resources and soft skills to assist organizations with their IT needs.
• Keyboard: A physical or digital device capable of communicating with a connected computer system through assigned key inputs.
• Linux: Highly versatile operating system created by Linus Torvalds.
• Microchip: Electronic components comprised of transistors and circuits.
• Microsoft Windows: A GUI based operating system developed by Microsoft, which is one of the most popular computer operating systems globally.
• Mobile App: Application specifically developed to run on smartphones and other mobile computing devices.
• Moore’s Law: A "law" proposed by Gordon Moore stating that the number of transistors in microchips would double every $2\,\text{years}$.
• Motherboard: Computer component that connects various other pieces of computer hardware.
• Mouse: An input device capable of detecting user manipulation to facilitate interactions with computer systems.
• Network Effect: Increase in benefit to a community as membership grows.
• Networks: Computers that are connected through either wired or wireless means with the purpose of sharing data.
• Operating System: Software that facilitates sharing, allocation, and effective utilization of computer resources.
• Smartphone: A small form factor computer combined with a mobile phone based around touch screen input.
• Software: Instructions that computer hardware can interpret and execute in order to achieve desired tasks.
• Storage Drives: Physical device to store data.
• System: Separate components working together to fulfill a function.
• Unix: Early and powerful operating system built by Bell Laboratories.

Case Study: Anthony’s Learners Permit

Anthony, upon turning $15\,\text{years old}$, became eligible for a Florida Learners Permit. He completed the required online Drug and Alcohol (DATA) course and the DMV Permit Test. The DMV information guide notes that course and test providers automatically transmit completion information to the DMV. When Anthony arrived at the DMV office, he observed technology everywhere—systems displaying and collecting information.

Question 1: What kinds of technology do you think your local DMV office would use to issue Anthony’s learners permit? Possible technological components include hardware (computers, monitors, cameras for ID photos, printers for the permit), software (the database management system to retrieve Anthony’s test results and store his personal data), and networks (local area networks within the office and wide area networks connecting to the state's central data centers).