Transcript slides (pptx)

INFO100 and CSE100
Fluency with Information Technology
Katherine Deibel
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
1


Computing and IT are two of the
youngest fields in STEM
Many of our founders are still alive or
recently passed on
 I've personally conversed with at least
three Turing award winners (basically the
Nobel prize in computing)

Still, the history goes back farther
than you may think
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
2

Several definitions for first computers
 Computation tool: abacus
 Mechanical: astrolabe and Antikythera mechanism
 Programmable: Babbage Analytical Engine
 First binary computer: Zuse Z3
 First electronic general purpose: ENIAC
 First commercial computer: Ferranti Mark 1
 First single chip microprocessor: Intel 4004
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
3

One of our earliest computation tools
 Predecessor was the stick/tablet with
crossed out counting marks

Arrangement of strings and stones
allowed for development of fast
counting methods (algorithms)
 Also introduced roundoff error
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
4



Source:
Documentary: The Story of One
with Terry Jones (Monty Python fame)
Setting:
A mathematician challenges an
modern abacus user
Play info: (start at 46:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umyhZu6gXmQ
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
5

Early 1st century BCE Greek
mechanical computer
Calculates position of Sun,
Moon, and several planets on
different dates
 Such mechanisms not seen
again until the 14th century

2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
6

Been around a lot longer than one
normally would guess
 Historical movement from gears to
vacuum tubes to transistors to
integrated circuits

But what about the software
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
7

Augusta Ada King,
 Countess of Lovelace
 Daughter of Lord Byron

Translated and extended
Menabrea’s article on
Babbage’s Analytical Engine

Predicted computers could be used for music and
graphics

Wrote the first algorithm— how to compute
Bernoulli numbers

Developed notions of looping and subroutines
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
8
The Analytical Engine has no
pretensions whatever to originate
anything. It can do whatever we know
how to order it to perform. It can follow
analysis; but it has no power of
anticipating any analytical relations or
truths.
— Ada Lovelace, Note G
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
9
If you are as fastidious about the acts of your
friendship as you are about those of your pen, I
much fear I shall equally lose your friendship and
your Notes. I am very reluctant to return your
admirable & philosophic 'Note A.' Pray do not alter
it…
All this was impossible for you to know by intuition
and the more I read your notes the more
surprised I am at them and regret not having
earlier explored so rich a vein of the noblest
metal.
— Charles Babbage
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
10


Some journals accepted and
supported science papers from
women authors.
Periodical like the Edinburgh Review
and Ladies Diary also provided
opportunities for publishing amateur
scholarly works.
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
11
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
12

Manual calculation of differential equations
for generating tables to be used in the field
 Supported through use of mechanical calculators
 A few specialized in the use of single-purpose
hardware (e.g., differential analyzer)

Women more prominent as computers
 Alternative to a career teaching mathematics
 Large pool of potential employees (both college
and high school graduates)
 Cheaper than hiring men
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
13

Six “computers” hired to be the first
programmers for the ENIAC project (1945)

Women comprised a large percentage of
later programmers for ENIAC, including
 Homé McAllister, Willa Wyatt Sigmund, and Marie
Bierstein
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
14
Learned the system through its blueprints
and conversations with its designers
 Worked in pairs on subprojects:

 Calculating and testing test trajectories:

Marlyn Meltzer and Ruth Teitelbaum
 Developing and streamlining the programs:

Frances Spence and Kathleen Antonelli
 Coordinating the Master Programmer unit:


Jean Bartik and Betty Holberton
Only group to program ENIAC at the machine
level
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
15

Ruth Teitelbaum
 Stayed with ENIAC project the longest
 Trained second generation of ENIAC programmers

Jean Bartik
 Conversion of ENIAC to a stored-program computer
 Worked on BINAC and UNIVAC I

Kathleen Antonelli
 Married John Mauchly (1948)
 Software design for the BINAC and UNIVAC I

Betty Holberton
 Suggest grey as the color for UNIVAC I
 Developed C-10 mnemonic instruction set for BINAC
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
16

For 50 years, their involvement was
mostly forgotten and ignored:
 Hardware more the focus than the software
 Names misspelled in official Army history
 Some programmers married ENIAC engineers


Programmers originally not invited to
50th anniversary of ENIAC
All six programmers inducted into the
Women in Technology International Hall
of Fame (1997)
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
17

Yes, there were plenty of men who
also worked in computing
 We will cover them more in other
chapters

This is a clip show of interesting
points in computing and IT history
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
18
Philadelphia Inquirer, "Your Neighbors" article, 8/13/1957
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
19

Education
 Vasser: B.S. in Mathematics
and Physics
 Yale: M.S. and Ph.D. in
Mathematics

Naval Career
 Joined Naval Reserves (1943)
 Assigned to work with Howard Aiken

Harvard
 First person to write a program for the Mark I
(arctangent calculations)
 Member of the Mark II and III development teams
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
20

While working on the Mark II, Hopper
discovered a moth stuck in a relay.

Originated the term “debugging”
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
21

UNIVAC
 Invented concept of compiler:
ARITH-MATIC, MATH-MATIC
and FLOW-MATIC
 COBOL was partially an extension
of FLOW-MATIC

Standards
 Advocated and pioneered development of
standards for testing computer systems and
languages.
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
22

Naval Career
 Retired three times
 1983 Special Presidential
promotion to Rear Admiral
 Defense Distinguished
Service Medal recipient (1986)

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)
 Senior Consultant and Goodwill
Ambassador (1986 – 1992)
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
23


To demonstrate the cost of
computing time, Hopper would
hand out pieces of wire.
Distance electrons travel:
 1 nanosecond ≈ 12 inches
 1 microsecond ≈ 1000 feet
 1 millisecond
≈ 189 miles
 1 second
≈ 189,000 miles
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
24

Grace Hopper explains the nanosecond
URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw

She also appeared on Letterman!
URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0g5_NgRao
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
25



Until the late 1960s, the general view
of computers was the mainframe
The idea of a personal computer on
one's desktop was an alien idea
Then came the Mother of All Demos
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
26

Early pioneer of HumanComputer Interaction
 Developed computer mouse
 Set foundation for Hypertext
 Established use of GUIs

Main credo:
Use computers to connect and
support human thought and capability
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
27


Stanford Research Institute
December 9, 1968
Live demonstration of a GUI
workstation that shows
 Computer mouse
 Video conferencing
 File sharing
 Word processing
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
28


URL:
http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1
968Demo.html
Clips:
2. Introduces workstation
3. Word processor
12. Mouse and keyboard
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
29

I expect to hear some groans…
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
30


Animated help tool in
Microsoft Office 97-2003
Despised by the public
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
31

Word had many many features
 Letter wizard
 Cross-referencing
 Etc.

Difficult for users to discover and learn
the features that could best help them
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
32




Bayesian model (AI technique)
Agent tracks user’s goals
Offer advice when user appears stuck
Taper off advice as user stops showing
interest in new features
 Prevent frustrating the user
 Accepts that every user may not want to
become a complete power user of Word
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
33


Lumiere’s software took up a large
percentage of the Office memory and
storage space requirements
Caused Office to run a bit slowly
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
34

Lumiere’s intelligence was stripped
 They kept the task detection software
 Removed the code for tracking the
learner’s progress and avoiding annoyance

Result:
 Unhappy customers
 Clippy removed from Office 2007
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
35

Negative opinion of intelligent helper
agents like Clippy
 Furthered by automated hotlines with
poor speech recognition

Lumiere as it was would run fine on
computers today
 It won’t be implemented into future Office
versions
 Consumer response would be negative
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
36



Clippy was over 4+ years ago
New smart agents are around
Apple iPhone’s Siri
 Very popular
 Not animated but is treated as a person

Siri-type clones likely to become more
plentiful in the near future
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
37


I hope you enjoyed a few clips from
the history of IT and computing
We'll touch on many more throughout
the rest of the term
 Starvation and theoretical physicists
 Laziness and integrated circuits
2012-04-16
Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology
38