CSE 1520Computer use: Fundamentals

Fall 2014

CSE 1520 – Computer use: Fundamentals

• Instructor (Section G): Simone Pisana• Course Director: John Hofbauer

• Office: LAS 1012 H• Email: pisana@yorku.ca• Office Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays 11:00-noon

• Course Website: www.eecs.yorku.ca/course/1520

Evaluation

• 9 Homework (2% each = 18%)– weekly, paper printouts in dropbox

• Tests (first, 15%; second, 20%)– in class, approx. 60 minutes long

• Final Exam (47%)– All multiple choice: 100 M/C questions with answers

placed on Scantron form– Content: all readings in Topics

How to do well in this course

• do all the homework exercises!

• read the book and study the notes

• attend lectures

• seek help if confused; ask questions

• write both tests

Video

Video:The Machine that Changed the world

Primary Website:http://waxy.org/2008/06/the_machine_that_changed_the_world

See “Week-01.1-video.pdf” for more information

A short and condensed history of computingPart I: Ancient history

Up to 1930

Origins of digital computers

• Abacus

• First uses 2,000+ years ago

• Can count, add, subtract, multiply, divide, square root, cubic root

• In decimal or hexadecimal

Early calculating machines

• Pascaline (1642)

• Mechanical adder with automatic carry mechanism

The Jacquard Loom

• Jacquard Loom (1804)

Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

• Considered as the father of the computer

• Designed mechanical computing machines: the difference engine and the analytical engine

• Mechanical hand or steam powered for computations, but very complex and hard to build & use

Babbage’s difference engine

Babbage’s analytical engine

• First mechanical general-purpose computer

• ALU, control flow, integrated memory!

• Programmed through punch cards

• Never finished

World’s first programmer

• Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)

• Lord Byron’s daughter

• Wrote the first algorithm intended for a general-purpose computer (Babbage’s analytical engine)

1880-1901 The birth of the modern mechanical calculator

The Hollerith tabulator

• Built to tabulate the 1890 US census

• Electrical contacts though punch cards used to activate relays to count and sort results

Early pocket calculators