Communications and Information Storage
Other developments related to information technology involved major advances in communication, such as the telegraph – which was really an electronic improvement on ancient methods such as drums and smoke signals, and later semaphore communication. The first telegraph was actually built in 1809, but the technology matured during the mid-nineteenth century with the development of methods whereby actual images could be transmitted electronically (1843).
With the laying of the Transatlantic Cable in 1866, communication that once took weeks or months could be accomplished in minutes. Further advances included the development of wireless communication in the 1890’s, and the combination of this technology with the typewriter to create the teletype machine in the early 20th century.
Thomas Edison was the first to come up with a way to store sound information with the invention of the phonograph in 1877, but it was really the development of audio magnetic recording tape in 1926 by German inventor Fritz Pfleumer that would become a method of storing information electronically. Magnetic tape was initially used for recording sound. The technology finally arrived in the U.S. after the
Second World War, and early computer engineers soon found uses for it. Magnetic audio tape was used to store data by the UNIVAC I computer of 1951.
What is interesting is how the information was stored – which differs little from the basic way information is stored today. If you were to listen to a magnetic tape on which computer data was stored, you would hear a series of beeps of varying lengths – but consisting of only two pitches. These are basically «ones» and «zeroes»
– the building blocks of all computer data.
Today, we are able to store, process and transmit more information than ever before in history, using nothing more than two symbols!
Information Technology Since 1980
The development during the 1970’s of integrated circuits and the microprocessor were the advances that began the real revolution in computing. Before the 1970’s, computers were huge, extremely expensive, and relatively slow.
Integrated circuits and microprocessors made possible the development of smaller, faster machines that were priced within the reach of more people. «Personal computers» had actually been around since the early 1950’s (computing pioneer Edmund Berkeley published plans for a PC which he called «Simon» in Radio Electronics magazine in 1950 and ’51). However, the Apple II, released in April of 1977 (price: about $1300) was the first modern desktop computer featuring an interactive, graphical interface made widely available and affordable to the general public.1
The other significant development came in the early 1990’s when a system of little-known academic and military networks dating from the late 1960’s and early 1980’s suddenly exploded into popularity. The World Wide Web, or Internet, has changed
the way people access information, communicate and even entertainment itself. Separate devices such as telephones, televisions and cameras are now becoming single devices that encompass all of these functions. Meanwhile, the power and capability of computers continues to go up while the cost of the technology continues to drop. As you’ll learn later on, this has tremendous implications for your small business.
Information Technology Today
The smallest, lowest-powered laptop computers available today have millions of
times more raw processing power and storage than the room-sized UNIVAC I – and
are light years beyond large desktop computers of as little as ten years ago. In
addition to desktop and laptop computers, hand-held devices such as PDAs
(Personal Digital Assistants) allow people to take digital pictures and film clips,
access their e-mail and the World Wide Web, input text information and even play
video games! Not only do technology prices continue to fall, the technology itself
continues to shrink in physical size as well.
This is a good thing, because the processing and memory demands of software programs – more properly known as applications – continue to grow exponentially. A good example of this would be a typical word processing program. A version released in 1993 could run very well on as little as 256 kilobytes of RAM (Random Access Memory) with a low-powered 16 mHz processor. Today’s version of that same application requires over one hundred times the memory and perhaps as much as two hundred times the processing power. Even the operating system software – the set of applications that make your computer operate in the first place (such as Windows XP or Mac OS X) has increased its appetite for memory. In the old days (early-to-mid 1990’s), operating software might have used less than a megabyte of RAM. Today, just the operating system (OS) can eat up to 250 megabytes – and that’s before you even start running any applications!
In addition to the growing demands of applications, the products of those applications – known as «files» – have expanded in size as well. Word processing documents can get extremely large when high-quality graphics are added, as well – something to think about if your small business is involved in publishing and/or graphic design.
Fortunately, the cost of both RAM and hard drives (where information is stored) has come down in cost considerably in recent years.
Types of Information Tools and Media
This subject by itself could easily fill a book, since information technology is so ubiquitous. Chances are, you and your business will need more than one of these tools, but will probably not need all of them.
Personal Computer
This is the heart of your small business I.T. system. You’ll find a plethora of models and options to choose from. New, low-end, entry-level machines today start at under $400, and include a processor running at 1.8 gigaHertz (Ghz), 256 MB (expandable up to 3 gigabyte [GB]) or RAM and an 80 GB hard drive. On the upper end are the latest Apple machines with 3 Ghz quadruple processors, 1 GB RAM (expandable to 8 GB), and a 250 GB hard drive. (Incidentally, if you’re not familiar with terms such as «gigabyte,» gigahertz» etc., don’t worry. These are defined in the glossary at the end of this book.)
The decision of whether to go with a PC (IBM-compatible) or a Mac (Apple) is less of an issue that it was just a few years ago. The newest Apple computers use the Intel chip used by the most popular PCs. In addition, Apple computers can now run Mac OS X side-by-side with Microsoft Windows. It’s really a matter of cost – a new, top-of-the-line Apple runs about $3200, is not easy to upgrade, and will probably be obsolete within two years. On the other hand, if you’re doing high-end video
editing, high-resolution 3-d animation and special effects, you won’t find a faster machine than an Apple.
PCs become obsolete almost as fast as their Apple counterparts, but are much more easily upgraded. In fact, it’s not difficult to build your own custom PC from easily-obtained components. There are also several companies that will do this for you (see Appendix).
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