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)