CSE 301 History of Computing

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CSE 301History of Computing

• The Origins of Computing

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Can your remember?

• Your first use of a personal computer?
• What type of computer was it?
• What operating system did it use?
• What programs did you use?
• What games did you play?
• Did you find it user-friendly?
• Did you find it maddening?
• How do you feel about computers now?

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Computers are Everywhere

• Computers and technology
• are a part of everything we do
• will continue to play an even greater role in the
  future
• help make many work tasks easier
• The more you know about computers the more
  valuable you are to an employer

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Questions to consider?

• How many computers do you have in your home?
• How long could you survive without a computer?
• How long could you survive without an Internet
  connection?
• How long could you survive without a high-speed
  Internet connection?
• When was the last time you wrote a letter?
• How many computers do you come into contact with
  on an average day?

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Looking back a few years
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Today

• Over half the work force produces information.
• Every 10 hours, more computers are sold than
  existed in the entire world 30 years ago.

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A Comparison

• Computers 35 years ago
• Controlled by computer specialists.
• Users related information needs to specialists.
• Slow to respond to a problem.
• Computers today
• Information is more timely.
• Systems are interactive.
• Systems are user-friendly

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The Technology Revolution Today

• At Work
• The mobile worker (airplane, beach, etc)
• Improved Productivity
• Instant Communication
• Paperless Environment?
• At Home
• Telecommuting
• Personal correspondence
• Homework
• Google it
• At Play
• Visiting pointless sites (Does anyone really need
  an Orc screensaver?)
• Gaming
• Speak with strangers on the other side of the
  globe
• View strangers doing strange things on the other
  side of the globe

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The Technology Revolution Tomorrow

• In the years to come, technology will become more
  important, more pervasive, and more complex.
• What technology do you expect to see in your
  lifetime?
• Will virtual reality become commonplace?
• Are supermarket cashiers, gas station attendants,
  bank tellers endangered species?
• What other jobs may soon disappear?
• Stock Broker? (www.etrade.com)
• Newscaster? (www.youtube.com/watch?vek-g5A0YTkw)
• Real estate agent? (www.mlslirealtor.com/search.cf
  m)
• Car salesman? (www.carsdirect.com)
• University Professor? (www.university-of-phoenix.o
  rg)

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Cyberphobia anyone?

• In todays workplace, IT competency is required
• Make intelligent, informed decisions
• Learn how to learn to use new software
• Keep up with the lingo (buzzwords)
• Real or fake IT buzzwords?

Describes software that anticipates and prevents
bugs.

• Robust?

Software has too many over-lapping dialog boxes.

• Lasagna Syndrome?

Cleaning up" the data for marketing purposes.

• Data Hygiene?

Competitors working together.

• Co-Opetition?

Software that uses too much disk space and RAM

• Bloatware?

Location in Tolkiens Lord of the Rings

• Helms Deep?

Legal French word for email.

• Courrier électronique

• English Technobabble is the real Esperanto

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Is it your obligation to society to be IT
proficient?

• Do techno-dummies hold up lines at the
  supermarket?
• Whats outsourcing?
• Information Awareness Office
• Internet sales tax
• Plan on having kids?
• Whats going on at your local library?

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Time-traveling Aliens have landed!

• Technologically advanced aliens read A
  Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court
  (audio version) and feel inspired, so just for
  fun they abduct you and transport you back to
  England in the year 528 A.D.

• Their challenge to you
• make a digital, electronic, stored-program
  computer before you die
• if you fail, humanity will be eaten

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Aliens Requirements

• Your computer must be able to
• perform arithmetic operations
• make logical decisions (if X is true, do Y)
• be programmed
• process data into information
• display results
• store results/data
• store programs for reuse
• We are describing a stored-program computer
• a.k.a. Von Neumann machine

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What is a Computer?

• A person?
• a programmable machine that can execute a list
  of instructions in a well-defined manner
• Webopedia

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Modern Computers are assemblies of components

• Keyboard
• Monitor
• Central Processing Unit (CPU)
• Random Access Memory (RAM)
• Hard Drive
• Motherboard

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CPU

• Central Processing Unit
• The Brain
• What do brains do?
• performs calculations
• gives orders to other parts
• Made of Integrated Circuits (ICs)
• have millions of tiny transistors and other
  components

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Whats a Giga Hertz (GHz) ?

• Unit of CPU speed (clock speed)
• G (giga) means 1 billion
• Hz is for frequency per second
• GHz means 1 billion clock cycles per second
• Whats a 2.8 GHz CPU?
• 2,800,000,000 clock cycles per second
• executes at least 2,800,000,000 operations/second

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Main Memory (RAM)

• Stores data for programs currently running
• Temporary
• empty when power is turned off
• Fast access for CPU

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Whats a Giga Byte (GB)?

• Unit of Memory quantity
• G (giga) for 1 billion
• M (mega) for 1 million
• Data quantities are measured in bytes
• 1 Bit stores a single on/off piece of
  information
• 1 Byte 8 bits
• 1 Kilobyte 210 (1,000 bytes)
• 1 Megabyte 220 (1,000,000 bytes)
• 1 Gigabyte 230 (1,000,000,000 bytes)

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Bytes?

• Use the following to approximate
• 1 bit 1 transistor
• 1 Byte 8 bits
• 1 character 2 Bytes
• 1 number 4 or 8 Bytes

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Hard Drive

• Stores data and programs
• Permanent storage (theoretically)
• Magnetic Disk vs. Solid State

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Motherboard

• Connects all the components together

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Our aliens are still waiting
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What if you could take some help with you?
Bill Gates
Microsoft, 1978
Steve Jobs
Steve Wozniak
Herman Munster
Alan Turing
Al Tipper Gore
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My Guess?

• Even with help, humanity would be doomed
• Why would I guess that?
• lack of pre-computing technologies
• lack of resource gathering technologies
• lack of precise manufacturing technologies
• NOTE timing is everything

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In studying the history of computers, where do we
start?

• We could go back thousands of years
• Mathematical developments
• Manufacturing developments
• Resource-gathering developments
• Engineering innovations
• The wheel?
• The basis of all modern computers is the binary
  number system

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What number system do you use?

• Decimal (base-10)
• Has been in use for thousands of years
• Guesses
• first China
• then India
• then Middle East
• then Europe (introduced as late as 1200)
• Not particularly efficient
• Not a good system for computers
• Why use decimal?

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Greek Number System
Letter Value Letter Value Letter Value
a 1 ? 10 ? 100
ß 2 ? 20 s 200
? 3 ? 30 t 300
d 4 µ 40 ? 400
e 5 ? 50 f 500
? or ? or st 6 ? 60 ? 600
? 7 ? 70 ? 700
? 8 p 80 ? 800
? 9 ? 90 ? 900
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Hardware likes binary

• Whats binary?
• a base-2 number system
• What do humans use?
• base-10
• Why?
• Why do computers like binary?
• dont be silly, computers dont have feelings

http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/09/Data
TNG.jpg
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Computer Designers Like Binary

• Why?
• its easier to make hardware that stores and
  processes binary numbers than decimal numbers
• results are more efficient
• space cost

http//msp222.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/ponceje
81/nerds.jpg
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Count to 8 in binary

• 0001
• 0010
• 0011
• 0100
• 0101
• 0110
• 0111
• 1000

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So what data does the hardware store?

• Everything!
• Text 0101010101010101010101000100011111
• Numbers 010000100010111110101101010110
• Programs 111010001011101001101010101001
• Images 00100010101110100100101010100010
• Etc.
• Programs?
• we use stored program computers

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Humans hate binary

• The Matrix is entertaining nonsense

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By the way, how do we store text?

• Numerically
• Huh?
• Each character is stored in memory as a number
• When its time to display
• draw the appropriate character based on its value
• NOTE the OS or program needs to know how to draw
  each type of character

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ASCII Unicode

• Standard character sets
• ASCII uses 1 byte per character
• How many different ASCII characters are there?
• Unicode uses 2 bytes per character
• How many are there?
• Ex, in both, A is 65

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ASCII Tablehttp//enteos2.area.trieste.it/russo/I
ntroInfo2001-2002/CorsoRetiGomezel/ASCII-EBIC_file
s/ascii_table.jpg
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How about a Unicode Table?

• Wont fit on a single slide of course
• Try http//www.tamasoft.co.jp/en/general-info/unic
  ode.html

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Some factoids

• 4th Century AD
• Mayan astronomer-priests begin using a positional
  number system based on base 20
• 1708
• Swedenborg proposes decimal notation should be
  replaced for general use by octal.
• 1732
• Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician
• used binary notation in correspondence
• 1887
• Alfred B. Taylor publishes Which base is best?
  and concludes it is base 8.

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Early Computational Devices

• (Chinese) Abacus
• Used for performing arithmetic operations

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Early Computational Devices

• Napiers Bones, 1617
• For performing multiplication division

John Napier 1550-1617
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Early Computational Devices

• Schickards Calculating Clock
• first mechanical calculator, 1623

Wilhelm Schickard 1592-1635
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Early Computational Devices

• Pascaline mechanical calculator

Blaise Pascal 1623-1662
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Early Computational Devices

• Leibnizs calculating machine, 1674

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz 1646-1716
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Early Computational Devices

• Thomas Arithmometer, 1820

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Early Computational Devices

• Arithmaurel, 1849

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Early Computational Devices

• Comptometer

Dorr Eugene Felt 1862-1930
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Early Computational Devices

• Bollées Machine

Léon Bollée 1870-1933
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Early Computational Devices

• Madas and Curta

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Early Computational Devices

• Slide Calculators

William Oughtred 1574-1660
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Early Computational Devices

• Atari 2600 (1977)