Transcript CSE 301 History of Computing - Computer Science, Stony Brook

CSE 301
History of Computing
The Origins of Computing
Can your remember?
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Your first use of a personal computer?
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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
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Computers and technology:
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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?
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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
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Over half the work force produces
information.
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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
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At Work
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At Home
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The mobile worker (airplane, beach, etc…)
Improved Productivity
Instant Communication
Paperless Environment?
Telecommuting
Personal correspondence
Homework
“Google it”
At Play
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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
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In the years to come, technology will become more
important, more pervasive, and more complex.
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What technology do you expect to see in your lifetime?
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Will virtual reality become commonplace?
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Are supermarket cashiers, gas station attendants, & bank
tellers endangered species?
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What other jobs may soon disappear?
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Stock Broker? (www.etrade.com)
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Newscaster? (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek-g5A0YTkw)
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Real estate agent? (www.mlslirealtor.com/search.cfm)
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Car salesman? (www.carsdirect.com)
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University Professor? (www.university-of-phoenix.org)
Cyberphobia anyone?
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In today’s workplace, IT competency is required
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Make intelligent, informed decisions
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Learn how to learn to use new software
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Keep up with the lingo (buzzwords)
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Real or fake IT buzzwords?
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Robust?
Describes software that anticipates and prevents bugs.
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Lasagna Syndrome?
Software has too many over-lapping dialog boxes.
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Data Hygiene?
“Cleaning up" the data for marketing purposes.
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Co-Opetition?
Competitors working together.
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Bloatware?
Software that uses too much disk space and RAM
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Helm’s Deep?
Location in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”
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Courrier électronique Legal French word for “email”.
– English Technobabble is the real Esperanto
Is it your obligation to society
to be IT proficient?
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Do techno-dummies hold up lines at the
supermarket?
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What’s outsourcing?
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Information Awareness Office
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Internet sales tax
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Plan on having kids?
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What’s going on at your local library?
Time-traveling Aliens have landed!
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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:
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make a digital, electronic, storedprogram computer before you die
if you fail, humanity will be eaten
Alien’s Requirements
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Your computer must be able to:
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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
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a.k.a. Von Neumann machine
What is a Computer?
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A person?
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“a programmable machine that can execute a
list of instructions in a well-defined manner”
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Webopedia
Modern Computers are
assemblies of components
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Keyboard
Monitor
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
Random Access Memory (RAM)
Hard Drive
Motherboard
CPU
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Central Processing Unit
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The Brain
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What do brains do?
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performs calculations
gives orders to other parts
Made of Integrated Circuits (ICs)
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have millions of tiny transistors and
other components
Inside the Chip
What’s a Giga Hertz (GHz) ?
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Unit of CPU speed (clock speed)
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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?
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2,800,000,000 clock cycles per second
executes at least 2,800,000,000 operations/second
Main Memory (RAM)
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Stores data for programs currently running
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Temporary
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empty when power is turned off
Fast access for CPU
What’s a Giga Byte (GB)?
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Unit of Memory quantity
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G (giga) for 1 billion
M (mega) for 1 million
Data quantities are measured in bytes
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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?
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Use the following to approximate:
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1 bit ≈ 1 transistor
1 Byte = 8 bits
1 character ≈ 2 Bytes
1 number ≈ 4 or 8 Bytes
Hard Drive
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Stores data and programs
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Permanent storage (theoretically)
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Magnetic Disk vs. Solid State
Motherboard
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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 Turing
Al & Tipper
Gore
Herman
Munster
My Guess?
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Even with help, humanity would
be doomed
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Why would I guess that?
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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?
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We could go back thousands of years
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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?
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Decimal (base-10)
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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
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What’s binary?
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What do humans use?
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a base-2 number system
base-10
Why?
Why do computers like binary?
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don’t be silly, computers don’t have feelings
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/09/DataTNG.
Computer Designers Like Binary
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Why?
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it’s easier to make
hardware that stores and
processes binary numbers
than decimal numbers
results are more efficient
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space & cost
http://msp222.photobucket.com/albums/dd297/ponceje81/nerds.jpg
Count to 8 in binary
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0001
0010
0011
0100
0101
0110
0111
1000
So what data does the
hardware store?
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Everything!
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Text: 0101010101010101010101000100011111
Numbers: 010000100010111110101101010110
Programs: 111010001011101001101010101001
Images: 00100010101110100100101010100010
Etc.
Programs?
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we use stored program computers
Humans hate binary
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The Matrix is entertaining nonsense
By the way, how do we store text?
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Numerically
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Huh?
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Each character is stored in memory as a
number
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When it’s time to display:
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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
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Standard character sets
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ASCII uses 1 byte per character
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Unicode uses 2 bytes per character
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How many different ASCII characters are there?
How many are there?
Ex, in both, ‘A’ is 65
ASCII Table
http://enteos2.area.trieste.it/russo/IntroInfo2001-2002/CorsoRetiGomezel/ASCII-EBIC_files/ascii_table.jpg
How about a Unicode Table?
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Won’t fit on a single slide of course
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Try http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/en/general-info/unicode.html
Some factoids
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4th Century AD
 Mayan astronomer-priests begin using a
positional number system based on base 20
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1708
 Swedenborg proposes decimal notation
should be replaced for general use by octal.
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1732
 Leonhard Euler, Swiss mathematician
 used binary notation in correspondence
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1887
 Alfred B. Taylor publishes “Which base is
best?” and concludes it is base 8.
Oooo! octal!
Early Computational Devices
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(Chinese) Abacus
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Used for performing arithmetic operations
Early Computational Devices
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Napier’s Bones, 1617
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For performing multiplication & division
John Napier
1550-1617
Early Computational Devices
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Schickard’s Calculating Clock
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first mechanical calculator, 1623
Wilhelm Schickard
1592-1635
Early Computational Devices
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Pascaline mechanical calculator
Blaise Pascal
1623-1662
Early Computational Devices
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Leibniz’s calculating machine, 1674
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
1646-1716
Early Computational Devices
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Thomas Arithmometer, 1820
Early Computational Devices
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Arithmaurel, 1849
Early Computational Devices
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Comptometer
Dorr Eugene Felt
1862-1930
Early Computational Devices
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Bollée’s Machine
Léon Bollée
1870-1933
Early Computational Devices
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Madas and Curta
Early Computational Devices
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Slide Calculators
William Oughtred
1574-1660
Early Computational Devices
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Atari 2600 (1977)