Transcript History of Computing

CS 305
Social, Ethical, and Legal
Implications of Computing
Chapter 1
History of Computing
Herbert G. Mayer, PSU CS
status 6/24/2012
Most slides derived from prof. Wu-Chang Feng
Slides 15..19 copied from prof. Harrison + Massey
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Syllabus
 Impact of Technology
 Controlling Technology
 History of Computing
 History of Communications
 Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data
 History of Programming Languages
 History of Information Storage
 Discussion for Students
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Impact of Technology
Technology impacts society, us, often in unforeseen ways
Examples:
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Candle light  allowed us to work during hours of darkness
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Invention of automobile solved transportation problems
 created new ones, e.g. emissions problems, traffic deaths
 but reduced the number of horse-back accidents
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Digital photography eliminated chemical photography, dark rooms
 bankrupted a whole industry; e.g. Kodak’s bankruptcy issues
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E-mail reduced US Mail volume
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Laptop computers made it handy to travel with your computer
 increased neck- and back pain
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Cell phones; made users feel connected, safer
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Refrigerators allowed foods to last longer
 freon impacted the ozone layer
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Internet vastly enhanced communication
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Controlling Technology
Mankind, laws, dictatorships, restrictions etc. cannot
really “control” inventions, but can influence the
speed of deployment, or general acceptance
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Nuclear power
P2P networks
Gun control
Amish
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Adopting new technologies affects how people relate
Bishops meet twice a year to determine which ones to allow
Cars? No! Create more hectic life, causes danger, pollutes
Gas barbeque? Yes, brings people closer together
Telephone? No, reduces face to face communication
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Focus: Computer Technology
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History of Computing
Manual Calculators
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10 fingers: limited numeric range, fails to work in cold weather
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Abacus, base 5 and 10: works well with small numbers
Mechanical Calculators
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Pascal (~1643) adder, invented at age 20!
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Leibnitz (~1660) four function calculator
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Burroughs (1890s), thought a few units saturate total market
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Charles Babbage (1810) Difference Engine, aborted for AE
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Babbage’s Analytical Engine (AE) 1835, also never completed
Other Calculating Devices
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Bouchon, Falcon, Jacques (~1710-1750) punched cards to program
repeated weaving patterns
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John Atanasoff (~1939) Iowa state prof. builds first digital computer
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Konrad Zuse (~1940) builds first relais-based digital computer with
real programming language (Plankalkül)
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History of Computing
Computing Innovations
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Guthrie (~1873) and Edison (~1883) invent vacuum tubes
that can be used as switching device
Cash register - Ritty (early 1900s)
 Prevent embezzlement via itemized receipts and printed logs
 Track tax collected
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Hollerith (~1900) punch card tabulation for census
Presper Eckert and John Mauchly (~1944) build Electronic
computer ENIAC
 based on Atanasoff’s ideas
 Final US patent granted to Atanasoff in 1980s
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History of Computing: UNIVAC
ENIAC was basis for UNIVAC product, commercially not successful
Acquired ~1950 by Remington Rand, thus was born the first commercially
successful computer corporation
Used to count votes, predict outcome of 1952 presidential election
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Predicted Adlai Stevenson lead over Dwight Eisenhower in polls before
election close
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UNIVAC accurately predicted (with 7% of the vote counted) that
Eisenhower would win in a landslide
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Computer programmers of UNIVAC mistrusted their program, modified it to
tilt the results more in favor of Stevenson
 CBS reported the erroneous result instead of the genuine, original computation
 Original prediction was accurate!
Other companies successful at building general-purpose computers: IBM,
CDC, NCR, Honeywell, GE, Ferranti, HP, Digital, Amdahl, Wang, …
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History of Computing
Programming languages
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Detail later …
Transistors and integrated circuits
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Bell Labs (1948)
Enabled smaller, more powerful computers
With higher reliability, critical due to large number of parts
Integral in development of Minuteman II ballistic missile
Microprocessors
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Intel 4004 (1969)
Eventually allowed computers in everyday devices (cell
phones, mp3 players, digital cameras)
Today microprocessors have > 1 Billion transistors
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History of Communications
Telegraph
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Samuel Morse (1830s)
Telegraph machine based on electricity to communicate
First line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore (1844)
200k miles of wire by 1877
Put Pony Express out of business
Most cities developed fire alarm telegraphs
Telephone
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Alexander Graham Bell (1876)
Transmission of human voice electronically
Eroded? Improved? Social hierarchies
 Ordinary citizens calling the governor
 Telemarketers call you, while you are eating dinner at home
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Loss of privacy
 Operators could eavesdrop on conversations
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History of Communications
Typewriter (1873) and teletype (1908)
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Electronic transmission of typed text
Radio
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Marconi (1895)
Used in 1912 by Titanic to signal distress
Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” (Halloween 1938)
 Radio play that demonstrated the power of radio to blur lines of reality
 Students: was Welles acting ethically?
Television
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Nipkow (1884), Farnsworth (1927)
Used to broadcast Armstrong landing on the moon (1969)
 Note delay! Just in case! Students, was the delay ethical?
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Problems with junkies?
Influences elections
 East coast results influence voting on the west coast
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History of Communications
ARPANET
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Precursor to Internet
Decentralized, packet-switched data network
Led to current Internet and its applications (E-mail, WWW)
Cell phones
Other gadgets: Skype, twitter, Facebook …
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History of Programming Languages
Some languages:
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Binary coding; then asm language; then relocatable asm
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High-level programming languages, and machine independent
programming languages
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FORTRAN (~1956) John Backus, IBM
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Lisp late 1950s
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BASIC (Beginner’s All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) 1963
Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny at Darthmouth
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Algol-60, committee, report 1960, Backus + Naur
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Cobol (COmmon Business Oriented Language) with decimal type,
created by Capt. Grace Mary Hopper US Navy
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APL (A Programming Language) 1950s Kenneth Iverson IBM
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Algol-W, Jovial, Algol-68, various Jovial dialects
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PL/I, IBM committee language, 1960, everything except kitchen sink
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C, Ada, Modula-2, Prolog, C++, Java, C#
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More from students …
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History of Information Storage
Codex
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From scrolls (BC) to durable bound volumes (~200 AD)
Printing press
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Gutenberg (1436)
Vehicle for mass communication and dissemination of information
Martin Luther and the Reformation
 Instrumental in the publication and dissemination of his theses
 Unified German languages into one common language
Hypertext systems
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Mennex: Information retrieval where associated documents can
easily be linked to others
Led to current WWW hypertext system – Berners-Lee (1990)
Search engines
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Yahoo, Google, etc.
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Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data
Storing Data
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Bone carvings [20,000 BC]
 auxiliary storage
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Wax Tablets [2000BC]
 auxiliary storage
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Codex [200s]
 from scrolls to books
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The Printing Press [1436+]
 write once, produce many
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Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data
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Paper Tape [1870s]
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Punched Cards [1890s]
 Herman Hollerith
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Magnetic Storage [1920s]
 For audio
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Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data
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Magnetic Data Tape [1951]
 ~10M on a 2400’ reel
 Sequential access
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Hard Disk [1956]
 Sequential access!
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SSD drives[~2005]
 Random access!
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Storing Organizing, Retrieving Data
Acquiring Data
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Keyboarding [1920s]
 IBM card punch
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Optical Character
Recognition [1950s]
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Speech Recognition [1961]
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Barcodes [1974]
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Storing Organizing, Retrieving Data
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Radio-frequency identification
(RFID) [1980s]
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Video Recognition [1990s]
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Discussion for Students
Are there technologies you wish had never been adopted?
Give examples of how new technologies require society to create
new rules
Should ripping a CD of your own legal? Would it be legal to leave
the digital copy on an open network share? Would it be legal
to add it to a P2P sharing library?
Can Amazon sell your personal information to third-party
partners? Should they be able to?
Who is liable for software failures that cause injury or death?
What are limits to workspace monitoring?
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Extra Discussion
Do you believe we are more connected or less
connected with people today? (no brainer  )
Does current level of connectivity render us more
happy, less satisfied? frustrated? productive?
Should election polls close at the same time
everywhere in the US?
Should one be prevented from posting content on the
Internet that is legal in one country, but not in
another?
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In-Class Exercise
List the last three-five consumer electronic devices
that someone in your acquaintance purchased
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List benefits to society this has provided
To whom? How?
List a number of potentially harmful benefits the device has
provided to you
How could this be harmful?
List three computer applications that you believe have
a huge impact on society
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What benefits have they provided?
What harmful side-effects did they cause?
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