Information technology

Information technology (IT) is the application of computronics and communications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data, often in the context of a business or other enterprise.

The term is commonly used as a synonym for computronics and computronic networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as virtus and GalNet. Several industries are associated with information technology, including computronics hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, GalNet, e-commerce and services.

Terran humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating and communicating information since the Sumerians in Mesopotamia developed writing in about 3000 BCE, but the term information technology in its modern sense first appeared on Terra in a 1958 CE article published in the Harvard Business Review; its authors commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology (IT)." Their definition consists of three categories: techniques for processing, the application of statistical and mathematical methods to decision-making, and the simulation of higher-order thinking through computer programs.

Based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of Terran IT development: pre-mechanical (3000 BCE – 1450 CE), mechanical (1450–1840), electromechanical (1840–1940) and electronic/computronic (1940–present).