History and Development of Computers

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address register

contains the location of the data that is needed

instruction register

contains the next instruction to be processed

vacuum tubes

controlled the computers' electrical operations

control unit

controls what is happening to the central processing unit; it doesn't process or store data instead it keeps the data moving smoothly.

Joseph-marie Jacquard

created the punchcard system for weaving looms which lead to the punchcard system for computers

optical storage media

data is stored on an ________ by using light in the form of a laser beam

Charles Babbage

designed a steam-powered engine in the early 1800's

Pascaline

in the mid 1600's, Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, invented an adding machine called:

Blaise Pascal

named after the programming language pascal

wider

the _______ a bus the faster the computer can process data.

1950

the first generation of computers

30

the weight of ENIAC is _______ tons

kilobytes

2^10 bytes

megabytes

2^10 kilobytes

gigabyte

2^10 megabytes

uniform resource locator

A ____________, is a string of characters that reference an Internet source.

Mark I

A computer like machine built in Harvard by Howard Aiken

Anastoff-Berry computer

ABC stands for:

Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer

EDVAC stands for _____________

Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator

ENIAC stands for

General purpose computer

ENIAC was the first_______

Alan Turing

He began work as early as 1939 on an electronic digital computer called colossus

tabulating machine

Hollerith invented the________ to help gather census data.

Binary number system

Since ENIAC, ULTRA, and ABC, all run off of electrical currents which only have 2 states (on and off) they created___________ which uses 1's and 0's to represent the flow of electricity

fire and Aim

The "ENIAC" was used to ____________ weapons during WW II

bytes

bits are grouped together in groups of 8

J. Presper Eckert Jr.

built a computer based off of Anastoff's ideas

John Vincent Anastoff

built the ABC before the "Mark I"

busses

computer systems contain ________ that allow their components to communicate with one another. they consist of groups of wires that transmit signals from one part of the system to another

magnetic storage media

hard discs, diskettes and magnetic tape

direct-access storage

hard disks and diskettes. data can be found without searching the whole disk

John von Neuman

he came up with the idea of writing instructions called programs

Howard Aiken

head of the research team at Harvard that started on the "mark I", a computer like machine in 1937

Clifford Berry

help John Vincent Anastoff build the ABC

primary storage

holds all the instructions and data needed for processing. intermediate and final results are also stored there. contained in the system unit.

generations

how computers are discussed and categorized

51 feet

how long the "Mark I" was

integrated circuits

hundreds of electrical circuits could be placed on a single silicon chip.

graphical user interface

in 1984 apple created a way to make using computers easier

hard disk

in nearly all microcomputers

address

in order to find data the computer must assign data an ________

large scale integration

in the fourth generation of computers engineers were able to fit more circuits on a chip. this process is called ______

Analytical Engine

invented in the early 1800's by Charles babbage. it was to receive instructions and input through coded punch cards.

Charles Babbage

known as the father of computers

Random access memory

memory in which data or instructions can be stored, or which data can be retrieved.

crystal

microcomputers contain a ______ similar to the ones used in quartz watches.

read only memory

permanently stored data in the hardware of the computer.

Herman Hollerith

put the punchcard system to good use, used the punchcard system to help the U.S. government sort the Census information

radio shack

realsed the first commercial microcomputer

mainframes

slower, less powerful, and less expensive than supercomputers. businesses, hospitals, universities, and banks with extensive processing needs them

accumulator

stores the results of ongoing arithmetic operations

storage register

temporarily holds the information being sent to, or taken from, primary storage

binary number system

the ABC was the first computer to use the __________

Registers

the CPU also contains special storage areas that act as high-speed loading zones

2^8

the amount of combinations of 8's it takes to represent all of the characters a computer needs to process.

faster

the bigger a word the computer it can handle the ________ it can process data

central processing unit

the brain of the computer. it has two parts the arithmetic/logic unit and the control unit

file allocation table

the computer operating system stores the location of each bit of data in an index, which is always stored in the same section of each hard disk.

microcomputers

the development of the microprocessor led to the development of a new kind of computer which were smaller, lower priced, computers that are typically designed to be used by a single person at a time.

sequential-access

the drive has to start at the beginning of the tape and read toward the end.

Telecommunications

the electronic transmission of words, sounds, images, and other types of data from one location to another

TRS-80

the first commercially released microcomputer

EDVAC

the first computer to use the Stored-Program Concept

EDVAC

the first multifunctional computer, its creation marked the start of the electronic age

1970

the fourth generation of computers began in ______

Stored-Program Concept

the idea that you could permanently store instructions in a computers memory and reuse it whenever needed.

word

the number of adjacent bits that a computer can store is called a

read/write head

the part of the drive that actually changes the data

hardware

the physical components of the computer

ULTRA

the second computer build by Alan Turing after colossus

transistors

the second generation computers used ______ which were more reliable than vacuum tubes

1960

the second generation of computers began

1500

the size of ENIAC is ________ square feet a size similar to a class room

software

the step-by-step instructions that a computer uses to preform a task.

machine language

the system of writing computer instructions in the binary number system

circuit boards

the transistors were mounted close together and connected with tiny, flat wires on small cards called _________. they were also used to improve radios and TV's

5 tons

the weight of the "Mark I"

Hollerith code

this code could represent data in 80 column punch cards

arithmetic/logic unit

this part of the central processing unit handles arithmetic and logic computations.

three seconds

time it took for the "Mark I" to multiply 10 place numbers

Very Large Scale Integration

todays electronics use ________ because we can fit a Great amount of circuits on a chip

steve Wozniak and steve jobs

two young computer wizards

thousands

vacuum tubes could switch on and off ______ of times per second

15 minutes

vacuum tubes would begin to fail every ________

formatted

when hard discs and floppy drives are first prepared for use (________) they are electronically divided into tracks and sectors to make storing and finding data easier and quicker

microprocessors

when the brain of a microcomputer can be placed on a single chip. it is called ______

IBM compatible

windows used the GUI's and made them

Ada Byron

worked with Charles Babbage before he died

american standard code for information interchange

ascii

John mauchly

assisted J. Presper Eckert Jr. in the building of ENIAC

peripheral device

an input device, output device, or secondary storage device that is not part of the CPU

silicon chips

_______ held hundreds of electrical circuits

ASCII

_______ was developed as a coding scheme to represent all characters a computer needs to process.

ENIAC

a computer built by Eckert and Mauchly

megahertz

a frequency of a million pules per second

20 seconds

a problem that took mathematicians 3 days to solve would take ENIAC _______

diskette

a thin, round piece of flexible plastic that is coated with iron oxide

Bit

a zero or one in an instruction for the computer

secondary storage

additional storage separate from primary storage in which data can be permanently stored

Video Conferencing

allows people at different locations to conduct face-to-face meetings without having to travel


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