LIVING IN THE I.T.

ERA
A period that has a particular quality or character. We are living in an era in which technology is
developing very rapidly.....

Prepared by
Prof. KT. V. FORTUNY, MSICT
Prof. ROBINSON E. JOAQUIN. MIT
Prof. ANN CAMILLE M. MAUPAY, MIT
Prof. MARK ANTHONY S. MERCADO, MIT
Prof. CHARITO M. MOLINA, MIT
The Electro Mechanical Age
(1840-1940)

Week 7-8
Introduction/overview

Week 7 to 8 is an overview of Information Technology with regards to the different discoveries during the
electro-mechanical age and the people or civilization that were behind it.
Learning Goals/objectives

At the end of the lessons, the student will be able understand and expand their:

• Insight of the electro-mechanical age.

• Knowledge of the race and civilization behind the discoveries.
• Insight on how the electro-mechanical age discoveries inspires our electronic age.
4.1.1 The Beginning of Telecommunications
Voltaic Battery/Pile

In 1800, Alessandro Volta of Italy announced his invention of a device that produced a
small but steady electrical current. His "voltaic pile" operated by placing pieces of cloth
soaked in salt water between pairs of zinc and copper discs, as seen in this 1805 pile from
Canisius College. Contact between the two metals creates a difference in potential (or
pressure, or "voltage"), which in a closed circuit produces electric current. Voltaic piles
mark the origin of modern batteries.

Before Volta's invention, electrical researchers like Benjamin Franklin worked with static
charges. They learned much, but were limited by the fact that the electrical discharge was
at very high potential and very low current; it also could be produced only in very short
spurts. A source of flowing current allowed wider-ranging experiments that resulted in
greater understanding of the links between electricity and other natural phenomena,
including magnetism and light and heat. Batteries attracted the attention of many
scientists and inventors, and by the 1840s were providing current for new electrical
devices like Joseph Henry's electromagnets and Samuel Morse's telegraph.
4.1.1 The Beginning of Telecommunications
Telegraph
The word telegraph is derived from the Greek words tele, meaning “distant,”
and graphein, meaning “to write.” 

Telegraph, any device or system that allows the transmission of information by

coded signal over distance. Many telegraphic systems have been used over the
centuries, but the term is most often understood to refer to the electric telegraph,
which was developed in the mid-19th century and for more than 100 years was the
principal means of transmitting printed information by wire or radio wave.

The first two practical electric telegraphs appeared at almost the same time. In 1837
the British inventors Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Sir Charles
Wheatstone obtained a patent on a telegraph system that employed six wires and
actuated five needle pointers attached to five galvanoscopes at the receiver. If
currents were sent through the proper wires, the needles could be made to point to
specific letters and numbers on their mounting plate.
4.1.1 The Beginning of Telecommunications
Telephone

Alexander Graham Bell, best known for his invention of the telephone,
revolutionized communication as we know it. 

In 1871, Bell started working on the harmonic telegraph — a device that allowed
multiple messages to be transmitted over a wire at the same time. While trying to
perfect this technology, which was backed by a group of investors, Bell became
preoccupied with finding a way to transmit human voice over wires.

By 1875, Bell, with the help of his partner Thomas Watson, had come up with a
simple receiver that could turn electricity into sound.

Other scientists, including Antonio Meucci and Elisha Gray, were working on similar
technologies, and there’s some debate over who should be credited with the
invention of the telephone. It’s said that Bell raced to the patent office to be the first
to secure the rights to the discovery.
4.1.1 The Beginning of Telecommunications
Radio

Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi (pictured at right) first developed the idea of a
radio, or wireless telegraph, in the 1890s. His ideas took shape in 1895 when he sent
a wireless Morse Code message to a source more than a kilometer away. He
continued to work on his new invention, and in 1897 he received the official British
patent for the radio - which was really a wireless telegraph system at first. Other
inventors in Russia and the United States had been working on similar devices, but
Marconi made the right political and business connections to gain the first real
success with the device. By 1900 there were four competing wireless systems.

By 1914, Fessenden, a Canadian who was once employed in Thomas Edison's labs,
had worked with General Electric to build alternators that could sustain a consistent
broadcast wave powerful enough to transmit voices and music over thousands of
miles. Radio was developed for its military applications in the pre-World War I years,
and the U.S. Navy held the patents.

In 1919, Marconi’s resources were sold to General Electric and with that Radio
Corporation of America (RCA, which spawned NBC Radio) - led by former Marconi
employee David Sarnoff - was formed. The radio boom began, as people found it
indispensable for receiving news and entertainment programs. 
4.1.2 Electromechanical Computing
Pehr and Edward Scheutz Engine

Inspired in 1834 by Babbage's work, Georg Scheutz (1785-1873) a Swedish printer,

publisher, journalist, translator and inventor, set about building a difference engine
of his own. At first, he speculated that just one of Babbage's engines 'would suffice
the needs of the whole world.' Later, he hoped to find markets for the engines and
began to see the machines as saleable products.

Georg, and his son Edvard (1822-1881) completed a working prototype in 1843. The
device was built in a wooden frame and made largely by Edvard, a teenager at the
start of the project. It operated with three orders of difference (compared to seven
for Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2) and produced the first tables calculated and
printed by machinery. Two expanded versions fully engineered in metal were
produced, one in Stockholm in 1853, the other in London in 1859.
4.1.2 Electromechanical Computing
Dorr Felt Comptometer

The Felt and Tarrant Comptometer was invented by Dorr E. Felt, in 1885. It was the
first push button calculator . The comptometer received its first patent and was put
on the market in 1887. There were a set of digit keys 1-9 for each position , there
were no zero keys. Pressing a number would change the display from 0 to the
number pressed. Numbers were added as each digit key was pressed . Results were
accumulated in the 9 windows below the keyboard. A lever cleared the display. This
machine did fully automatic carries. For example if 99999999 was displayed and the
1 key was pressed, the machine displayed 100000000.

Subtraction on the Comptometer was via complimentary digits. These digits were
printed smaller than the additive digits on each key. As with most adding machines,
subtraction via complimentary digits was a little tricky. The user needed to mentally
subtract one from the number to be subtracted and since there were no
complimentary 9 digits, 9s were simply skipped. Also, an extra 1 appeared to the left
of the real answer which could be ignored or shifted further to the left by pressing 9
keys.
4.1.2 Electromechanical Computing
Herman Hollerith, Tabulating Machine & IBM

Herman Hollerith is widely regarded as the father of modern automatic

computation. He chose the punched card as the basis for storing and processing
information and he built the first punched-card tabulating and sorting machines as
well as the first key punch, and he founded the company that was to become IBM.
Hollerith's designs dominated the computing landscape for almost 100 years.

In Hollerith’s design, each card—roughly 3 inches by 7 inches—held one person’s

data. A clerk would read the census rolls and punch that citizen’s details in the
appropriate places on the card. The machine operator would then place the card on
a press attached to the tabulating machine and close the cover. This would push a
field of pins down onto the card. The pins that made their way through the holes
contacted small cups partly filled with mercury, completing an electrical circuit. This
transmitted electrical impulses to the dial-like counters on the machine and the
results were registered on the counter board.
4.1.2 Electromechanical Computing
Otto Steiger & Millionaire Calculator Machine

In 1892 the brilliant Swiss engineer Otto Steiger from St. Gallen (1858-1923), who
lived in Munich, received his first patent for a calculating machine of direct
multiplication type. Next years the machine was patented in Switzerland, Great
Britain, France, USA and Canada. The machine of Otto Steiger is the fourth designed
but first commercially-successful direct multiplication calculating machine, which
was in production until 1935 and despite his extremely high price (e.g. in the USA in
the beginning of 20-th century machine was sold from $475 all the way up to
$1100, at the same time this was the price of a normal car) had a commercial
success.

In his German patent of 1892 Steiger describes a machine which uses a mechanical
representation of the multiplication table to form partial products, in the same way
that a human "calculator" uses a multiplication table committed to memory. The
partial products are then transferred via a "transmitting mechanism" to a
"combining and registering mechanism" for display to the operator. The Steiger's
machine is to be regarded as a proper multiplication machine in that it solves
problems of multiplication directly on the basis of the multiplication table, whereas
other types of calculating machines are only adding machines and, as such, carry
out multiplication by a continued series of additions.
4.1.2 Electromechanical Computing
Lee De Forest & Audion, first vacuum triode, a vacuum tube

Lee De Forest (1873–1961) was a remarkable American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit.
He took credit for the Audion, first vacuum triode, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak
electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the electronic age, as
his Audion helped to usher in the widespread use of electronics.

In Forest's original design, a small metal plate was sealed into the lamp housing, and this was
connected to the positive terminal of a 22-volt battery via a pair of headphones, the negative
terminal being connected to one side of the lamp filament. When wireless signals were applied to
the wire wrapped around the outside of the glass, they caused disturbances in the current which
produced sounds in the headphones.

This was a significant development as existing commercial wireless systems were heavily protected
by patents and a new type of detector would allow De Forest to market his own system. He
eventually discovered that connecting the antenna circuit to a third electrode placed directly in the
current path greatly improved the sensitivity. In his earliest versions, this was simply a piece of wire
bent into the shape of a grid-iron (hence "grid").
Assignment
Answer the following & put it in the provided answer sheet.

Week 7-8: Create an essay with your own words and understanding. What technology is your favorite or
best for you in the electronic age and why. You can research about the different technologies of Electro-
Mechanical Age aside from the technologies discussed in this module.

Grading: 40 points. Write 250 – 300 words essay, answer as comprehensibly as possible.

Criteria Points
Content 10
Organization of concept 10
Neatness 10
Completeness 10
Total Points 40

14
Sources:

1. https://tcf.ua.edu/AZ/ITHistoryOutline.htm

2. https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_703289

3. https://www.britannica.com/technology/telegraph

4. https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/alexander-graham-bell

5. http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/150/1890.xhtml

6. https://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/georgedvardscheutz/

7. http://www.csun.edu/~hbmth090/feltand.html

8. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/hollerith.html

9. https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/tabulator/

10. https://history-computer.com/MechanicalCalculators/19thCentury/Steiger.html

11. https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Basis/audion.html
Images:
1. https://nationalmaglab.org/media/k2/items/cache/3a67af25f1556a3ef945893aea5519d9_L.jpg

2. https://www.thoughtco.com/thmb/zAjhIGACx3HlIvPGrEUZpZcCo0s=/768x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():f
ormat(webp)/Components_of_the_electromechanical_telegraph_network._Proce_Wellcome_V0025510-
a39ea4c848c64c6e875cbde229f658e2.jpg

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_telegraph#/media/File:Printing_Telegraph.jpg

4. https://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=NMAH-NMAH2002-05170&max=1000

5. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/28/Muirhead_Morse_inker_%28Rankin_Kennedy
%2C_Electrical_Installations%2C_Vol_V%2C_1903%29.jpg/800px-Muirhead_Morse_inker_%28Rankin_Kennedy
%2C_Electrical_Installations%2C_Vol_V%2C_1903%29.jpg

6. https://images.computerhistory.org/babbage/5-9-3.jpg

7. https://images.computerhistory.org/babbage/5-9-4.jpg

8. https://history-computer.com/MechanicalCalculators/19thCentury/images/1887_Comptometer.jpg

9. https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/UikRVcm9mCjAa7qM_dZWT_OR6xs=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/https://public-media.si-
cdn.com/filer/9e/73/9e73347b-4c2a-490b-b70c-dc3db5495bbc/hollerith_census_machinechm.jpg

10. https://history-computer.com/MechanicalCalculators/19thCentury/images/Steiger1.jpg

11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audion#/media/File:Triode_tube_1906.jpg