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Early Communications
Since the dawn of civilization human kind has found ways to improve the way they live
and communicate. People often think that we are living in a technological age and think
of other eras as being before technology. In fact, people have always developed and used
technology. Since the dawn of human civilization we have used tools and found ways to
communicate. Progress was slow at first. Important advancements were few and far
between. As more communication and technology was developed the process accelerated
and today advances in communication are occurring at an exponential rate.
Early Man
During the the Stone Ages (Paleolithic and Neolithic) from about 2.5 million years ago
to about 4000-3000 B.C. the primary material for tools was stone. Other materials such as
bone, ivory and antler were also used. Communication methods started with gestures,
grunts and the development of primitive speech. Other forms of communication evolved.
Smoke signals and drums are used for long distance communication, Neanderthals made
carvings on wooly mammoth teeth, others engraved images on pelvis bone, and horse
animal carvings appeared on wooly mammoth ivory.
Agriculture Era
The agricultural era began with the advent of the plow about 4000 B.C. during this period
there are two defined ages; the Bronze age and the Iron age
The Bronze Age (4000 B.C.-1000 B.C.) is the earliest phase of agriculture civilization.
Tools and implements were made of an alloy of copper and tin)
Communication now has developed to the point where there is a fairly extensive spoken
language system, history is recorded in pictographs clay tablets, inscriptions, the
Egyptian Book of the Dead is compiled, scribes are employed, engraved seals are used as
identification, documents appear on papyrus, the Phoenician alphabet is developed,
writing exists in China and a Syrian scholar compiles an encyclopedia
The Iron Age
This is the period when iron came into common use. More robust tools were developed
and the water wheel helped replace human and animal power. Many new
communications devices and methods were developed:
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1200 - 0 B.C.
o China - organized postal service
o Greeks - alphabet, libraries and telegraph consisting of trumpets, drums,
shouting, beacon fires, smoke signals, and mirrors
o Persia - develops a form of pony express
o Chinese - writings on bamboo, wood and silk
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books are written on parchment and vellum
gazettes and postings
0 - 1000 A.D.
o Roman - couriers for mail.
o Chinese - invents paper, use ink seals on paper, books printed central Asia.
o paper use spreads to many areas of the world
1000 - 1450 A.D.
o China - fabricates movable type, using clay, sew pages to make stitched
books.
o communicate by letter system, messenger service, development of metal
type, many methods and types of printing
1451 - 1550 A.D.
o Gutenberg uses a press to print, metal plates are used in printing,
Gutenberg prints the 42-line Bible,
o 1st book printed in color, postal system established, printing of books on
paper becomes more common in Europe, paper mill is established in
England
o Garamond designs his typeface
o camera obscura developed in Italy,
1551 - 1650 A.D.
o
the pencil is invented
o first regularly published newspaper appears in Germany, France
introduces registered mail, first printing press in the American colonies,
Kirchner, a German Jesuit, builds a magic lantern,
1651 - 1750 A.D.
o postal service appears in many places, German engraver Le Blon develops
three-color printing, a typewriter is developed, wood is used to make
paper, Ben Franklin starts a circulating library
Industrial Era
Until the 1880's most people worked on farms. The majority of time was spent growing
and harvesting food. The family farm was the most common way of life.
The industrial revolution changed the face of farming forever. Many people moved away
from farms to work in factories and offices
Starting about 1750, many new devices and process were invented. These new ideas
spread quickly and the move was made to mass produce goods and materials. With
machinery to make goods, factories appeared and cottage industries declined.
This period saw the explosion of communication devices as well. Many of the
communication technologies we are familiar with were invented during this time. These
include the telegraph, typewriter, calculator, telephone, phonograph, cameras, radio,
audio recording, first computers.
Up to this point the profusion of technology has been increasing but with the advent of
the computer things are about to change. We are at the dawn of the "information age".
Information age
We now live in the information age. Factories are becoming more automated, fewer
people are employed in factories, and there are more jobs available in the exploding
information industry. The reliance on technology for handling this information (data) is
increasing. There is widespread use and adoption of information and communications
technologies and in all areas of human endeavor. We are moving through technological
change as revolutionary as that of the Industrial Revolution. Today with the advent of the
computer we have instant access to information through the Internet. E-mail is
proceeding to revolutionize communication traditions like no other. Third generation
mobile phones now exist with the capacity for the user to surf the internet .
Read the section "Technology and Change" pages 26-28 of Johnson, Communication
Systems.
The Future of Communications
Indeed, today computers can share data from around the world as easily as if they were in
the same room. And all the systems are beginning to converge, computers are taking on
the characteristics of phones and television while phones gain the capabilities of
computers.
We are at the dawn of a new millennium. What will the future hold for communications?
The skin of technology and network infrastructure encircling the earth will grow. Land
based networks are growing all around the globe. As communication devices continues to
become faster, smaller, cheaper and smarter the constant stream of information, will grow
larger and more useful. Sensors such as thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors,
cameras, and microphones will monitor cities, roadways and the environment and
transmit data directly into the network.
Some people predict communications will become so integrated as a network that
appliances will automatically call the manufacturer if it breaks down and allow the
manufactures computers to run a diagnostic, your lawn sprinkler will check the weather
forecast before turning itself on. Others are predicting badge size communication devices
which will understand speech and that wrist video phones will be commonplace.
If communication changes as quickly in this century as it did in the last, we will need to
hold on for the ride. We may be closer to a virtual world than even the most optimistic
prophets predicted.
Electricity and Electronics
The discovery and evolution of electricity and electronics devices has been an important
driver in the development of communication technologies. All modern communication
devices are based on the development of electricity and electronics. As discoveries have
been made improvements were quick to follow and often practical applications were
found. Some of these developments in electricity and electronics have fuelled the
development of new communication devices while for others explanations have been
discovered after the applications have been discovered.
The Development of Telegraph and Radio
One example of the connection between discoveries in electricity and the development of
communication devices is the wireless telegraph of Guglielmo Marconi. The discovery
of electromagnetic waves allowed the development of the invention and use of the waves
for the wireless telegraph. Ironically, Marconi's experiment worked in spite of the
opinion expressed by some distinguished mathematicians that the curvature of the Earth
would limit practical communication by means of electric waves to a distance of 161-322
km. They were unaware of the ionosphere where ions and electrons are present in
quantities sufficient to affect the propagation of radio waves. This region was first
independently theorized in 1902 by Oliver W. Heaviside (British) and Arthur Edwin
Kennelly (American) following Marconi's success in sending a radio signal across the
Atlantic Ocean on Dec. 12, 1901.
The first observational evidence of the ionosphere came from the British scientists
Edward Appleton and M.A.F. Barnett in 1925, and, more convincingly, from the
Americans Gregory Breit and Merle Antony Tuve in 1926.
Timeline of Radio Development
Below is a timeline outlining the events leading to the development of radio and the
explanation of why it works.
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1864 - after much research James Clerk Maxwell publishes information on the
dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field
1865 - Maxwell proves mathematically that electromagnetic phenomena are
propagated as waves through space at the speed of light
1886 - Heinrich Hertz confirmed Maxwell's theory by creating and detecting these
electric waves.
1889 Elihu Thomson proposed their use for signaling through fogs or even
through solid bodies
1889 - Professor Edouard Branly (Paris), Sir Oliver Lodge (London) and
Professor Augusto Righi (Bologna) experimented with various “radio conductors”
and wave producers
1893 - William H. Preece realizes that electromagnetic induction can transfer a
"modulated" current from one loop to another remote loop
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1893 - Preece develops this induction technique and "telegraphs" without cables
over a distance of 8km
1894 - Marconi reflects radio waves into narrow beams by using metal sheets
around the antenna
1896 - Marconi is first person to transmit "radio signals" - he builds a transmitter
and a receiver, sends a distance of 3km
1901 - Marconi improves radio receiver, instead of wire he uses glass tube filled
with iron fillings, sends signal 2,000km - The age of radio has begun
1924 - 1926 - experiments confirm that radio waves bounce off the ionosphere
Summary
The development of communications devices parallels or follows the development or
discoveries of new devices or methods in electricity and electronics. This can be
demonstrated in the development of the radio, telephone and modern computers.
Instructions:
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Create a poster or drawing of one of the following:
o depicting an ancient communication method indicating how it fits with the
communications model
o comparing several early communication methods from different cultures
Part B - Future Communication Technologies
Instructions:
Prepare a 200 word presentation on any communication technology real or invented
which people use in the year 2101. In your presentation state:
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what it will look like
what it will allow us to do that we cannot do now
what unintended outcomes such a technology may bring with it.
Web Pages, Web Sites, Web Servers, Webs, and Web
Content Development
Web Pages
Web pages are the basic building blocks of the world wide web. A web page contains
three kinds of information
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textual information that you can read in the browser
links to images and other kinds of information that are loaded by the browser
when the page is opened
instructions (html codes) to the browser about how to display the information on
your computer screen
Web Sites
Web sites are collections of related web pages. Usually they are all linked with some
form of navigation system. This course, for example is a web site with a large number of
related pages, and a navigation structure for finding your way around and for showing
where you are at all times. A web site can be small with only a few pages, or it can be
very large with thousands of pages. A web site is usually denoted by a domain name
such as cdli.ca, or virtualteachercentr.ca, or leevalleytools.ca. There are many kinds of
websites from personal, to educational, to commercial.
Web Servers
A web server is a computer that is running web server software. It can host many
websites, each with their own URL. The web server may have its own URL, and be
hosting a number of web sites, each with their own URL. The STEM~Net website, for
example is at www.stemnet.nf.ca. The computer is a large Sun server running Solaris
Unix as the operating system. It lives in the Computing and Communications center at
MUN. The web server software is Apache web server. The computer also hosts the
SchoolNet News website at http://www.snn-rdr.ca/. This type of website is called a
virtual website because it is not associated with the physical machine that hosts it.
Webs
A web is essentially a website that does not have a domain name. Rather, the url is an
extension of an existing domain name. While the term can apply to any such website, it
particularly applies to such sites created in Microsoft FrontPage. When used with
Internet Information Server software, this FrontPage feature allows the creation of many
such webs without any of the problems associated with creating virtual websites.
Each web is unique, complete with its own navigation structure and content, operating
independently of the main website. This feature allows web owners to have management
rights for their own web without having any management rights to the main website.
This feature will be used in this course to build and manage your own content as part of
the course activities.
Web Content Development
Web content development can be accomplished with many different pieces of software.
The html coding and the text content can be written with very simple text editing tools
such as Notepad. Doing so is a very useful exercise since it helps you understand and
learn how pages are constructed. On the other hand, if ypu are primarily interested in
creating content, and the coding is important, but not your main interest, there are a wide
variety of tools available. They range from HTML editors that are plain text but let you
insert code by clicking on buttons all the way up to full WYSIWYG (what you see is
what you get) editors that automatically insert the code and format the page content as
you write it. Check a site like TUCOWS on STEM~Net to see the range of HTML
editors.
This course uses Microsoft FrontPage as the content development tool for students
because of its simplicity (it looks and acts a lot like Word), power (it has full site and
page management tools, theme and navigation tools, and many others), and it lets you
focus on the project you are working on.