Solid state physics & Devices _the harbinger of third wave of

ROAD MAP OF COMPUTER DEVELOPMENT

[Computer age- Communication fuelled Universal Empowerment]

Key words: Telegraphy, Vacuum Tube, Transistors, integrated Circuit Technology, Computer;

Summary: In the first part the lecture gives the background of Third Information Revolution. Then it describes the unfolding of Third Information Revolution. It traces the development in Electronics in general and in Computer Engineering in particular from 1833AD to date. It gives the development of SuperComputers till date. It gives the source of digital data and total data generated per annum. It gives a Table on World Wide Internet Users. Table 1 gives the evolution of µP chips, Table 2 gives the evolution of different generations of computers, Table 3 gives the evolution of Local Area Network, Table 4 gives the data on Submarine and land cables laid till now. It also gives a special note on Hard 350 Disc Drive introduced in IBM 305 Ramac Computers supplanting the magnetic tapes.

[ Science&technology year by year –Marshall Publication,London,2001]

Gutenburg Revolution, the Second Information Revolution , gave rise to the rotating type Printing Press. “Printing Liberated people’s mind by enabling the widespread dissemination of knowledge and opinion. But it remained subject to censorship and worse. Television shrank the planets into Marshall Mclean’s “global village” but the representation it diffused were tightly controlled by editors, corporations, advertisers and governments.”

The net in contrast provides the first totally unrestricted , totally uncensored communication system-ever. It is a living embodiment of an open market in ideas. Its patron saint (if that is not a blasphemous though for such a secular hero) is Thomas Paine, the great 18 th century libertarian who advanced the remarkable idea (remarkable for the time, anyway )that everyone had a right to speak his mind and the even more notion that they had a right to be heard.”

Precisely because of this “Net is potentially more powerful than both printing and TV because Net harnesses the intellectual leverage which printing gave to the man-kind without being hobbled by the one to many broadcast television.”

BC700 - The First Information Revolution - Invention of the Phoenicians Alphabets, the mother of all European languages.