COMPUTER CHIPS SHAPE AN INFORMATION SOCIETY

[Music] the screen news digest a film series on current events shaping contemporary history brought to you as a community service by coppers company a local widely diversified employer leading in the field of architectural and construction materials to build permanence into good design plastics to provide convenience and economy to everyday living chemicals and coatings for countless applications behind the scenes and out in front engineered products to increase industrial efficiency and increase output engineering and construction of modern steelmaking facilities for the leading industrial nations coppers a part of your community with goods and services for the world [Music] since antiquity mankind has sought tools to extend our physical and mental powers this ancient structure in England called Stonehenge is believed to be one of the first calendars a tool to determine the longest and shortest days and so clock the year and the growing season today and tomorrow a new tool microelectronic chips like this and associated computerized technology will aid human progress this is a report on chips origins production and growing role in shaping and information society [Music] the first counting devices fingers were simple but limited at the start large quantities were immeasurable then a special stone was given a value of ten fingers and other stones larger quantities and so the system was extended counting with objects led to the development of the first counting device the abacus about 500 BC groups of stones became columns of beads each column having a value 10 times greater than the column to the right it was fast reliable could handle very large numbers and is still used worldwide in 1642 the young French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented a machine that could perform additions and subtractions gear drums registered numbers and ratchets carried tens from one column to the next in 1865 Joseph jacquard developed a loom which employed a new principle his loom was automatically controlled by a series of punched cards whose patterns regulated the rise and fall of particular thread rods different sets of cards were used to produce completely different designs [Music] the new loom operated much like a player piano weaving and music making broken down into a series of small tasks automatically controlled moreover by using different sets of instructions the same machines produce completely different patterns starting in 1823 Charles Babbage designed a series of computers employing this principle by using different sets of instructions or programs his proposed analytic engine could carry out many kinds of complex calculations never fully constructed it was designed to use punched cards and steam power and would have been the first fully programmable computer more useful was the cash register perfected in 1884 by John H Patterson by the 1930s electric circuits were being tested as replacements for computers mechanical parts a single vacuum tubes on or off current would record a 1 or 0 a larger number of tubes wired together would be used to make complex calculations [Applause] the first general-purpose electronic computer was built in 1946 Eenie act electronic numerical integrator and computer data was processed by 18,000 vacuum tubes complex calculations done as sequences of additions and other arithmetic processes this was the first fully transistorized commercial computer introduced in 1959 compact transistors replaced the bulky vacuum tubes today processors like this far exceed in power those earlier machines at its heart carrying out the functions of thousands of vacuum tubes and other components a tiny H chip of silicon such chip circuits are designed in layers with the aid of computers the circuits shown here in large scale resemble street maps of a great city which are then reduced to the size of postage stamps the designs are converted to tiny photographic masks projected onto disks of pure silicon and photo etched into the surface layer by layer wafers are then cut up into individual chips wired and packaged although minut the chip operates much as earlier computers and the abacus did numbers in the form of electric signals are shuttled or processed controlled by other storage signals called the program the end result is an output signal a calculation solution machine instruction video image synthesized sound or other answer as use of such computerized technology spreads tools that can remember compare and draw conclusions we are more and more an information society our lives increasingly focusing on gathering processing and communicating information one major area of such computer application has been industrial functions beginning at the factory gate check-in at this aerospace factory plant floor computer terminals monitor quality control movement of materials and work in progress such computer systems are becoming as common as shop tools and forklifts in addition industrial robots are coming in to use sensor equipped machines that can carry out complex repetitive tasks the industrial potentials of micro electronics are exemplified by the space shuttle a highly advanced robotic system designed to do a complex demanding task that in many ways resembles a computerized chemical plant or electronics factory like tomorrow's industrial plants the shuttle functions as a tightly coupled network of computers linked to sensors and actuators under control of a few human operators in business management computers are now a major aid in decision-making linked by a communications network they become powerful company-wide information systems as enormous amounts of new information are added to every field computer skills and professional ones are increasingly inseparable [Music] transactions and banks all over the world for example are more and more often handled by large financial computer networks linking branches throughout the nation processing thousands of transactions per hour computerization is leading towards tomorrow's electronically integrated office eliminating retyping manual filing sorting and similar routines in the case of the information known as financial credit computers are now being applied to speed its transfer in every possible way automated teller machines allow direct access to bank computers providing money immediately anytime anywhere the information society is also transforming personal life applying computer power to better answer each individual's problems and needs for instance your supermarket now uses laser scanners to read merchandise barcodes allowing store computers to report back prices and take inventory of each item on your shopping list this permits stores to fine-tune an inventory of thousands of different kinds of merchandise [Music] similarly many sales clerks now use a control processor that continuously record sales inventories and other data thus improving service computerized self-service terminals are dispensing more and more products directly to customers like this automatic air ticketing system making travelling more convenient [Music] hotel guests are now checked in by computer and its central hospitality systems monitor and bill all in hotel transactions the systems thus both meet and record each guests many individual choices such systems applied to home school and other environments could continuously anticipate individual wants making life in some ways almost an endless holidays [Music] advanced information systems also save time when time is a matter of life and death as with hospital systems which speed delivery of vital services and offer instant access to critical individual care data keeping medicine organized efficient and responsive computerized crime clearing houses can similarly improve law enforcement here a suspicious vehicle is computer identified as a recently stolen car and pursued [Music] increasingly computerized systems are being applied to provide ever more sophisticated legal financial and medical services in addition to help in building design tax returns education and training at all levels mankind has always sought tools like the Stonehenge calendar to measure and reshape the world today the microelectronic chip and other computerized technology are measuring and reshaping and new information society and with it new skills thoughts and dreams [Music] the screen news digest has been brought to you was a community service by coppers company