Information Technology and Its Evolution (Part 5)

(Continued)

Electromechanical Era (the 1800s-1940s): Electricity works its magic

    It was the era of revolution in distant communication, many inventions and advancements came about in this era, giving birth to an all-new field "Telecommunications".

    A brief intro of important events and inventions of this era is given hereafter:-

Telegraph (1833) 

    German physicist Wilhelm Eduard Weber and German mathematician-physicist Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss invented the first electromagnetic telegraph in 1833 that could not proceed further from experimental use. Then, the invention of the Voltaic battery, the first battery that could create and store electricity and the proven connection between electricity and magnetism helped the British team of Cooke and Wheatstone to develop the first fully working commercial electric telegraph in the 1830s that could be used to communicate over long distances with the help of electricity. Its receiver consisted of some wires and needles that could be pointed around a board of letters and numbers by utilizing an electric flow.

Morse Code & Telegraph (1835-1838)

    Samuel Morse, an American painter-inventor along with his friend Alfred Lewis Vail, American machinist-inventor created Morse code, a coding system that represented alphabets, numerals, and punctuation marks by a combination of dots, dashes, and spaces; and an Electric Telegraph system comprised of armature system in which the beat triggers a telegraph sounder making a click. The system used a single wire. Operator at the sending station would spell out text messages in Morse code by tapping on a switch called a telegraph key. Initially, the armature was proposed to imprint spots on paper tape on receiving side, however, operators learned to understand the clicks and started to note down messages directly as it was more efficient.

First Computer Program (1842-1843)

    In a period of nine-month between 1842 and 1843, Ada Augusta Lovelace, considered to be the first programmer translated the memoir of Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea about Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine. She appended a set of notes with the article specifying in complete detail a procedure for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, often considered world's first computer program. Early computer codes specialized for their applications.

Fax Machine (1843)

    'Electric Printing Telegraph' was invented in 1843 by Alexander Baina a Scottish inventor and engineer is considered World's first faxing device. Since then, faxing has transformed over time and is still in use widely.

Telephone (1876)

    Alexander Graham Bell, a Scottish-born scientist and inventor invented the Telephone in 1876 with the help of Thomas Watson, a skilled electrician. Bell conducted a demonstration of his invention by using two telegraph offices five miles away from each other. Bell made the world's first telephone call using existing telegraph lines.

(Era to be continued.....)

Stay tuned with us as the next part is scheduled to be published on coming Monday dated 15-11-2020