Connecting with Computer Science Chapter 1

Who has been called the first programmer?

Ada Lovelace is considered the first programmer for her work with Babbage's Analytic Engine.

Name the four important elements of Babbage's Engine that are components of today's computer.

An input device, memory, a central processing unit, an output device

What challenge to the IBM PC did Apple launch in 1984? What response did Microsoft launch against Apple a few years later?

Apple launched the Apple Macintosh in 1984. Microsoft later came out with Windows.

What color can you attribute to IBM of the 1950s, and what significance did it have for IBMs eventual dominance of the marketplace?

Big Blue, blue suited salesforce

How would you compare the early electronic computer to the player piano?

Both used stored information from a card with holes in it.

In hardware, the next step up from the transistor was the transmitter.

Everyone

What long-term memory storage device that computers have today did second-generation computers often lack?

Hard drives or any kind of magnetic disk storage device

What technology did Herman Hollerith borrow from the Jacquard loom?

He borrowed the idea of stored information on cards with holes.

One of the ideas used in the development of ARPANET -- splitting information into blocks and reassembling them at their destination -- came from the Rand Corporation. The initial concept began in relation to what system?

It was originally conceived for the telephone system but never adopted.

On what kind of computer was the first UNIX operating system written?

It was written on a minicomputer, a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-7.

What reason is given for the invention

Machine code is difficult or humans to read. Assembly-language code makes it easier to program machine code.

Name two needs of society that led to the development of more complex mathematics.

Measuring resources, land, dimensions for construction, navigation, understanding the cycle of the year, etc.

What was the first mechanical device used for calculation?

Probably the Chinese abacus. Although clay tablets and other counting mechanisms predate it.

Name the two people responsible for the first Apple computer. Name the "killer app" responsible for the Apple II's success.

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs; VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program

Name at least one computer other than ENIAC that was developed independently and simultaneously during World War II.

The Mark I in the United States, the Colossus in Britain, and the Z1 in Germany.

What software did the Altair microcomputer get that later helped make Bill Gates rich?

The Microsoft BASIC programming language

IBM has some of its origins in what 1890 event?

The U.S. Census

In what language was the first UNIX operating system written? What did Thompson and Ritchie have to create for the second version of UNIX?

The first UNIX OS was written in B. The C programming language was developed to create the second UNIX version.

Name an important concept attributed to Ada Lovelace

The program loop

What important concept is attributed to John Von Neumann?

The stored program concept

Name two important developments of the second generation of hardware.

The transistor and magnetic core RAM

What features of transistors made them superior for computers, compared with vacuum tubes?

They were cheaper, smaller, and cooler than tubes and lasted longer

To whom, writing in the 1940s have the origins of hypertext been attributed?

Vannevar Bush

Before the Altair, Ed Roberts created what?

calculators

What innovation does the ENIAC appear to borrow from the AtanasoffBerry Computer?

using vacuum tubes