AGE OF COMMUNICATION AND TECHNOLOGY

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMMUNICATION

Communication is information sharing. The basic means of communication are by seeing and hearing. Sometimes smelling,tasting, and touching are considered communication but that is usually only in the literal sense.

Society depends on communication. Without communication government would cease to function. Business would come to a halt. Our military defenses, police, and fire protection could not protect citizens without communications. Weather information would not be available for farmers or airline pilots. Our food supply and transportation would be in complete disarray. Loss of communication would result in the loss of family ties. Entertainment would cease to exist as we know it today. Modern society would cease to exist.

Man uses many symbols to communicate. Because words are the easiest of all symbols, most societies attach words to everything people visualize, know, or hear.

As people use the same word over and over it develops a common meaning. When enough words develop a common meaning, then the words are tied together into some kind of structure. This structure then develops into the language for its country.

Some written languages have used pictures instead of words to communicate. Prehistoric man used pictures. The Egyptians used hieroglyphics. Mathematics is a special written language

Language and writing help a cultured society meet its basic and physical needs. Meeting the basic needs as described by Maslow would be totally consuming without communication. Communication helps us specialize and gives us more time to fulfill man's emotional needs. Without adequate communication society could not meet the hierarchy of needs we have grown up to accept.

Communication enables society to span distances by moving beyond face to face communications. As communications improve in a society, it becomes capable of more specialization and diversity. Communication must stay in step or lead technological improvement. Today's world has communication and technology linked at the hip. Computers have made it possible for the development of the internet or the information super-highway. Where will it all end. No one knows. Maybe someday communication, technology, and knowledge will allow us to make a mental connection. One hundred years ago, the information super-highway would have seemed as impossible and it's here today.

Take a look at some of the developments in Communication that have changed the face of the world.

• 3000 B.C. The Egyptians created a picture language called hieroglyphics.
  The Sumerians developed cuneiform which was a system of writing on clay tablets using wedge shaped symbols.
• 2500 B.C. The Egyptians started writing and keeping records on papyrus sheets
• 1500 B.C. The Semites created an alphabet
• 600 B.C. Libraries were built and established by Babylonians and Assyrians. An example was the Royal Library of Ninevah (Capital of Assyria)
• 322 B.C. Aristotle created a series of books. This was an attempt to bring existing knowledge together.
• 300 B.C. Numerals were invented by the Hindus
• 200 B.C. Parchment was made and began to be used in Western Asia
• 60 B.C. Shorthand was invented by Marcus Tullius Tiro. He was a Roman slave when he invented shorthand.
• 70 A.D. "Natural History", the oldest reference in history was written.
• 105 A.D. Chinese began using paper and ink.
• 450 A.D. Asia used Block Printing
• 800 A.D. The Arabs began to use our current number system.
  They copied this from India.
• 868 A.D.The "Diamond Sutra" was block printed. This is the oldest block printed book which has been preserved.
• 1440Moveable metal type was invented by Gutenberg.
• 1539 Mexico began using the first printing press in the Western Hemisphere.
• 1622 "Corantos" or newsletters were printed in Europe.
• 1639 The first press in the American Colonies was established in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 1642 Blaise Pascal invents the first numerical wheel calculator called a Pascaline.
• 1665 The "London Gazette" was the first English newspaper.
• 1702 The first daily newspaper in English was published in London England. It was called the "Daily Courant".
• 1704 The first daily American newsletter was the "Boston News-Letter".
• 1731 The first magazine was published in London, England. The name of the magazine was the "Gentleman's Magazine".
• 1741 The first American magazine was called the "American Magazine" and was published in Philadelphia, Pa.
• 1755 "Dictionary of the English Language" was published by Samuel Johnson. This was a simple dictionary.
• 1783 The first daily newspaper was the "Pennsylvania Evening Post and Daily Advertiser". It was founded in Philadelphia, Pa.
• 1790 Claude Chappe invents 'optical telegraph' in France
• 1803 England designed a machine for making paper.
• 1814 The cylinder press was made.
• 1820 Joseph-Marie Jacquard loom was invented. The loom used punched cards to process machine instructions and output printed results.
• 1828 The first comprehensive dictionary was published by Noah Webster.
• 1832 Charles Babbage outlined the basic elements of a modern computer.
• 1832 Augusta Ada King was the first female computer programmer.
• 1833 The first free public library supported by taxes was built inPeterborough, N.H.
• 1837 Free public education was started in Massachusetts.
• 1839 Photography was invented in France by Joseph Niepce and Louis Daguerre.
• 1844 Samuel Morse transmitted the first public telegraph message.
• 1858 The first Transatlantic cable was laid.
• 1864 Electromagnetic radio wave theory was developed by James Maxwell.
• 1867 First practical typewriter was invented by Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden, and S.W. Soule.
• 1872 Eadweard Muybridge demonstrates motion photographs using a stroboscopic disc.
• 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone.
• 1877 The Phonograph was invented by Thomas Alva Edison (U.S.A) and Charles Cros(France).
• 1877 A practical photographic film was invented by George Eastman.
• 1878 Thomas Edison invents and patents the recording of sound onto cylinders and discs.
• 1884 George Eastman invents flexible photographic film.
• 1887 Heinrich Hertz first to transmit and receive radio waves over a short distance.
• 1887 Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.
• 1888 Emile Berliner demonstrates the first example of a phonograph playback device.
• 1888 Dr. Roth and Prof. Reuss of Vienna use bent glass rods to illuminate body cavities.
• 1889 Herman Hollerith used punched memory cards to do the U.S. census. Results were compiled in six weeks compared to ten years. His Tabulating Machine Company evolved into IBM.
• 1889 Valdemar Poulsen patents the first magnetic recorder.
• 1891 Laurie Dickson succeeds in making 15 second motion pictures using Thomas Edison's motion picture camera.
• 1894 Motion Picture projection became usable.
• 1895 The wireless telegraph was invented by Guglielmo Marconi.
• 1895 First public demonstration of motion pictures (France).
• 1897 Ferdinand Braun developed the cathode ray tube.
• 1898 David D. Smith of Indianapolis applies for patent on bent glass rod as a surgical lamp.
• 1900 Max Planck initiates a new field of science, quantum physics, by demonstrating mathematically that matter radiates energy in discrete bundles, which he calls quanta.
• 1905 Albert Einstein explains the photoelectric effect, showing that light is made up of packets, called photons. In 1921, Einstein earned the Nobel prize for this breakthrough.
• 1905 Sir Ambrose Fleming developed the first electron tube.
• 1906 First wireless communication of human speech.
• 1907 Cathode Ray tube used to produce television images.
• 1912 Electronic sound amplification made possible with the vacuum tube amplifier developed by Lee de Forest.
• 1917 Einstein identifies a phenomenon called stimulated emission.
• 1918 Regular Airmail service was established in the United States. The first run was between Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia.
• 1919 First broadcast radio station KDKA licensed in Pittsburgh, Penn.
• 1920 Bent glass rods used for microscope illumination.
• 1923 Patent of the iconoscope picture tube.
• 1923 Pictures were televised between New York City, N.Y. and Philadelphia, Pa.
• 1927 Pictures with sound first appeared in American movie theaters.
• 1930 RCA conducts black and white television experiments.
• 1933 Edwin Armstrong develops the theory of Frequency Modulation (FM) for radio broadcasts.
• 1935 Tweeter and Woofers developed to reduce loudspeaker distortion.
• 1936 The Magnetophone, the first magnetic tape recorder, is developed.
• 1936 First Television broadcast made in London, England.
• 1938 George Valensi proposes color television broadcasts.
• 1939 Tape sound quality improvement using AC Bias.
• 1940 First all-electronic computer was developed by John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry.
• 1941 Commericial television began in the United States.
• 1941 Z3 computer could design airplanes and missles. Developed by German engineer Konrad Zuse.
• 1948 CBS introduces the LP (Long Play) record.
• 1948 The transistor was invented and in computers by 1956
• 1949 RCA makes the 45 rpm 7" record disk available to public.
• 1949 Technical system developed to transmit chrominance and luminance signals in a single channel.
• 1950 Cinemascope and 3D brought to the movie screen.
• 1951-1953 Charles Townes at Columbia University Radiation Laboratory discovers how to harness stimulated emission to generate a focused microwave beam. He received the 1964 Nobel prize.
• 1951 UNIVAC computer developed by Remington Rand was able to predict the outcome of the 1952 U.S. presidential elections.
• 1954 Stereo tapes introduced to the public.
• 1954 Acoustic suspension loudspeaker popularized by Kloss.
• 1954 Color television broadcast standards are set in the U.S.
• 1957 Satelite first sent information back to earth.
• 1958 First Stereo LP's released to public
• 1958 Townes and Arthur Schawlow of Bell Laboratories publish their work on laser theory.
• 1959 United States and Russian rockets sent information back to earth from distances beyond the moon.
• 1960 Theodore Maiman of Hughes Aircraft Company builds a laser using a synthetic ruby.
• 1962 "Telstar I",a satelite, first beamed television programs between the United States and Europe.
• 1962 First Stereo FM broadcasts
• 1964 Compact cassette available for public (Philips)
• 1965 The United States sent the first commercial satelite, "Early Bird" into space.
• 1970 Morton Panish and Izuo Hayashi of Bell Laboratories demonstrate a semiconductor laser that operates continuously at room temperature.
• Donald Keck, Peter Schultz, and Robert Maurer at Corning Glass Works report the creation of optical fibers.(fibre optics)
• 1971 Intel 4004 chip developed an integrated microprocessor chip which could be programmed for different needs.
• 1975 Digital recordings first made.
• 1975 Sony publically marketed the Betamax VCR for recording of video.
• 1976-1977 Bell lab Fiber-optics trials, are initiated in telephone systems in Atlanta and Chicago.
• 1976 JVC markets the VCR with the VHS format.
• 1976 Dolby Stereo made available for movies (Dolby Laboratories).
• 1978 First video laser disc player marketed by Philips.
• 1980 Sony put the "Walkman" on the market.
• 1981 IBM introduced its PC (personal computer) for personal and office use.
• 1983 Sony and Philips make first CD player available to public.
• 1984 First Hi Fidelity VCR is introduced to the public.
• 1985 Television began to be broadcast in Stereo.
• 1988 The first transatlantic fiber-optic cable is laid.
• 1994 High Definition TV standards agreed on in the U.S.
• 1997 Cassini Space Mission to probe Saturn's System.
• 1998 Donald Umstadter & scientists at the University of Michigan College of Engineering discover relativistic nonlinear optics
• 2005 (expected completion date) Teledesicis building a global computer network, broadband Internet access, interactive multimedia and high-quality voice or an "Internet-in-the-Sky." using state of the art Earth-orbit satellites.

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Austrailian National Science and Technology Centre

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This Site Was Last Updated on May 14, 2006