CSE 301 History of Computing The Origins of Computing.
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Transcript of CSE 301 History of Computing The Origins of Computing.
CSE 301History of Computing
The Origins of Computing
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?
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
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?
Looking back a few years
Today
Over half the work force produces information.
Every 10 hours, more computers are sold than existed in the entire world 30 years ago.
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
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
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?v=ek-g5A0YTkw)
Real estate agent? (www.mlslirealtor.com/search.cfm)
Car salesman? (www.carsdirect.com)
University Professor? (www.university-of-phoenix.org)
Cyberphobia anyone? In today’s 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?
Software that uses too much disk space and RAM
Software has too many over-lapping dialog boxes.
Describes software that anticipates and prevents bugs.
“Cleaning up" the data for marketing purposes.
Competitors working together.
Location in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”
Legal French word for “email”.
• Robust?
– English Technobabble is the real Esperanto
• Lasagna Syndrome?
• Data Hygiene?
• Co-Opetition?
• Bloatware?
• Helm’s Deep?
• Courrier électronique
Is it your obligation to society to be IT proficient?
Do techno-dummies hold up lines at the supermarket?
What’s outsourcing?
Information Awareness Office
Internet sales tax
Plan on having kids?
What’s going on at your local library?
Time-traveling Aliens have landed!
Technologically advanced aliens read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s 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
Alien’s 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
What is a Computer?
A person?
“a programmable machine that can execute a list of instructions in a well-defined manner” Webopedia
Modern Computers are assemblies of components
Keyboard Monitor Central Processing Unit (CPU) Random Access Memory (RAM) Hard Drive Motherboard
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 componentsInside the Chip
What’s 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
What’s a 2.8 GHz CPU? 2,800,000,000 clock cycles per second executes at least 2,800,000,000 operations/second
Main Memory (RAM)
Stores data for programs currently running Temporary
empty when power is turned off
Fast access for CPU
What’s 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)
Bytes?
Use the following to approximate:
1 bit ≈ 1 transistor 1 Byte = 8 bits 1 character ≈ 2 Bytes 1 number ≈ 4 or 8 Bytes
Hard Drive
Stores data and programs
Permanent storage (theoretically)
Magnetic Disk vs. Solid State
Motherboard Connects all the components together
Our aliens are still waiting
What if you could take some help with you?
Bill Gates
Microsoft, 1978
Steve Jobs Steve Wozniak
Alan TuringAl & Tipper Gore
Herman Munster
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
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
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?
Greek Number System
Letter Value Letter Value Letter Value
α´ 1 ι´ 10 ρ´ 100
β´ 2 κ´ 20 σ´ 200
γ´ 3 λ´ 30 τ´ 300
δ´ 4 μ´ 40 υ´ 400
ε´ 5 ν´ 50 φ´ 500
ϝ´ or ϛ´ or στ´ 6 ξ´ 60 χ´ 600
ζ´ 7 ο´ 70 ψ´ 700
η´ 8 π´ 80 ω´ 800
θ´ 9 ϟ´ 90 ϡ´ 900
Hardware likes binary
What’s binary? a base-2 number system
What do humans use? base-10 Why?
Why do computers like binary? don’t be silly, computers don’t have feelings
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/09/DataTNG.jpg
Computer Designers Like Binary
Why? it’s 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/ponceje81/nerds.jpg
Count to 8 in binary
0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000
So what data does the hardware store?
Everything! Text: 0101010101010101010101000100011111 Numbers: 010000100010111110101101010110 Programs: 111010001011101001101010101001 Images: 00100010101110100100101010100010 Etc.
Programs? we use stored program computers
Humans hate binary The Matrix is entertaining nonsense
By the way, how do we store text? Numerically
Huh?
Each character is stored in memory as a number
When it’s 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
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
ASCII Tablehttp://enteos2.area.trieste.it/russo/IntroInfo2001-2002/CorsoRetiGomezel/ASCII-EBIC_files/ascii_table.jpg
How about a Unicode Table?
Won’t fit on a single slide of course
Try http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/en/general-info/unicode.html
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.
Oooo! octal!
Early Computational Devices
(Chinese) Abacus Used for performing arithmetic operations
Early Computational Devices Napier’s Bones, 1617
For performing multiplication & division
John Napier1550-1617
Early Computational Devices
Schickard’s Calculating Clock first mechanical calculator, 1623
Wilhelm Schickard1592-1635
Early Computational Devices
Pascaline mechanical calculator
Blaise Pascal1623-1662
Early Computational Devices
Leibniz’s calculating machine, 1674
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz1646-1716
Early Computational Devices
Thomas Arithmometer, 1820
Early Computational Devices
Arithmaurel, 1849
Early Computational Devices
Comptometer
Dorr Eugene Felt1862-1930
Early Computational Devices
Bollée’s Machine
Léon Bollée1870-1933
Early Computational Devices
Madas and Curta
Early Computational Devices
Slide Calculators
William Oughtred1574-1660
Early Computational Devices
Atari 2600 (1977)