Introduction to Computing

Apple Macintosh (1984)

Brought excitement again for personal computers. Has an icon.

Interface Message Processor (IMP)

Computer which helped in the development of ARPANET.

Harvard Mark 1 (1937)

Conceived by Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and designed and built by IBM, this was a room-sized, relay-based calculator. It was used to produce mathematical tables but was soon superseded by stored program computers.

Tabulating Machine

Counting machine used in the 1890 US census. It used punched cards to represent an individual's census data

Seymour Cray

Designed CDC 6600.

Osborne (1981)

Portable.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)

Prominent German polymath and one of the most important logicians, mathematicians and natural philosophers of the Enlightenment.

Altair 8800 (1975)

Within weeks of the computer´s debut, customers inundated the manufacturing company, MITS, with orders. Bill Gates and Paul Allen licensed BASIC as the software language for the computer. Ed Roberts invented this — which sold for $297, or $395 with a case — and coined the term "personal computer." The machine came with 256 bytes of memory (expandable to 64K).

Atari 800 (1979)

(Connected to the two Atari Models) While the ____________ would be more of a home computer. Both sold well, though they had technical and marketing problems, and faced strong competition from the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 computers.

Punched Card

A 12-row/80-column IBM punched card from the mid-twentieth century

Tommy Flowers

A British engineer that designed the Colossus.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

A French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and a Christian philosopher.

Seymour Cray

A computer architect who devoted his life to the creation of so-called supercomputers, machines which prioritized processing capacity and speed of calculation.

IBM System/360 (1964)

A family of six mutually compatible computers and 40 peripherals that could work together. The initial investment of $5 billion was quickly returned as orders for the system climbed to 1,000 per month within two years. At the time IBM released this, the company was making a transition from discrete transistors to integrated circuits, and its major source of revenue moved from punched-card equipment to electronic computer systems.

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) (1954)

A gigantic computerized air defense system, it was designed to help the Air Force track radar data in real time. Equipped with technical advances such as modems and graphical displays, the machine weighed 300 tons and occupied one floor of a concrete blockhouse.

Transistors

A miniature device that is used to control or regulate the flow of electronic signals. This replaced vacuum tubes.

Integrated Circuit or Chip

A semiconductor wafer on which thousands or millions of tiny resistors, capacitors, diodes and transistors are fabricated.

Herman Hollerith (1860-1929)

American businessman, inventor, and statistician who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine.

Turing Machine (1936)

An abstract computing machine that encapsulates the fundamental logical principles of the digital computer.

Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) (1949)

An early British computer. This was the second usefully operational electronic digital stored-program computer. It was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England. This computer ran its first programs on 6 May 1949, when it calculated a table of squares and a list of prime numbers.

TRS (1977)

Another personal computer.

Cray (1976)

At the time of its release, this was the fastest computing machine in the world. Despite its price tag — between $5 and $10 million — it sold well. It is one of the many machines designed by Seymour Cray, a computer architect who devoted his life to the creation of so- called supercomputers, machines which prioritized processing capacity and speed of calculation.

Atari 400 (1979)

Atari introduces the Model 400 and 800 Computer. Shortly after delivery of the Atari VCS game console, Atari designed two microcomputers with game capabilities: the Model 400 and Model 800. The two machines were built with the idea that the __________ would serve primarily as a game console

Abacus (2400 BC)

Calculating tool. Supports Multiplication, Addition, Subtraction, Division, Square Root

Leibniz Calculator (17th Century)

Can perform addition, subtraction, division, multiplication. Actually named "Stepped Reckoner".

Howard Aiken and International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)

Conceived and design Harvard Mark 1.

John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert

Conceived and designed Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).

Interface Message Processor (IMP) (1969)

Conceived at the height of the Cold War, when the U.S. government sought a way to keep its network of computers alive in case certain nodes were destroyed in a nuclear attack or other hostile act. This computer featured the first generation of gateways, which are today known as routers. As such, it performed a critical task in the development of the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the world's first operational packet switching network, and the predecessor of the contemporary global Internet.

Analytical Engine (18th Century)

Contained many similar elements to modern digital computers. For example, Babbage's engines 'punched card' control; fast multiplier/divider; a range of peripherals; even array processing'. The Science Museum (where lots of Charles Babbage Inventions are located) assembled Babbage's Calculating Engine number 2 according to his original designs in 1991.

Apple Lisa (1983)

Created by Steve Jobs, was expensive before.

HP 200A Audio Oscillator (1939)

David Packard and Bill Hewlett found Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto, California garage. This was their first product, which rapidly became a popular piece of test equipment for engineers. Walt Disney Pictures ordered eight of the 200B model to use as sound effects generators for the 1940 movie "Fantasia."

Gordon Brown

Despite Turing's enormous achievements, he faced persecution during his life because he was gay. In 2009, then prime minister _____________________ made an official apology for the "appalling way" Turing was treated, and in 2013 he was granted a posthumous pardon by the Queen.

Alan Turing (1912-1954)

English mathematician, computer scientist, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. In 1936, he wrote a paper, "On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem," which paved the way for the invention of the Turing Machine. In 1942, he also devised the first systematic method for breaking messages encrypted by the sophisticated German cipher machine. He was a founding father of artificial intelligence and of modern cognitive science, and he was a leading early exponent of the hypothesis that the human brain is in large part a digital computing machine. Father of computer science and artificial intelligence. Considered to be the father of the modern computer.

Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, who is best remembered now for originating the concept of a programmable computer; Father of Computer.

Kenbak - 1

First attempt at personal computer.

Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC) (1937-1942)

First electronic digital computer. Built at Iowa State College (now University), this was designed and built by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry between 1939 and 1942. This was at the center of a patent dispute relating to which is the first electronic digital computer Patent dispute was resolved in 1973 (in favor of it) when it was shown that ENIAC co-designer John Mauchly had come to examine the computer shortly after it became functional.

Altair 8800

First real mainstream personal computer.

IBM System/360

First successful mainframe launched by IBM.

CDC 6600

First successful supercomputer.

Control Data Corporation's (CDC) 6600 (1964)

For a time the fastest machine in the world, this machine was designed by noted computer architect Seymour Cray. First successful supercomputer.

Konrad Zuse (1910-1995)

German civil engineer, inventor and computer pioneer; Created Z1-Z4.

Kenbak - 1, Altair 8800, Apple 1, Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Hewlett-Packard 150, IBM PC, Atari 400 and 500, Osborne, Commodore 64, IBM PS2

Give 3 brands of microcomputers discussed.

DEC PDP - 8, VAX 780

Give a minicomputer produced by DEC.

Cray

Give another supercomputer produced in the 1970s.

IBM PS2 (1987)

Has 3.5 disc.

Winston Churchill

He credited Alan Turing for making "the single biggest contribution to the allied victory" in World War II

Ed Roberts

He invented Altair 8800 and coined the term personal computer.

John von Neumann (1903-1957)

Hungarian-born American mathematician who is widely credited with defining that stored-program computer architecture, on which the Manchester Mark 1 was based.

IBM PC (1981)

IBM introduced its PC, igniting a fast growth of the personal computer market. The first PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and used Microsoft´s MS-DOS operating system. Featuring an independent keyboard, printer and monitor, the slick, complete-looking package that was this PC helped push personal computing out of the hobbyist's garage and into the corporate and consumer mainstream.

Alan Turing Law (2016)

In 2016, the government unveiled this law that posthumously pardoned thousands of gay and bisexual men convicted under outdated gross indecency laws. The law effectively acted as an apology to those convicted for consensual same-sex relationships before homosexuality was decriminalised in England and Wales in 1967.

Pascaline (17th Century)

Initially called an arithmetic machine, Pascal's calculator. It was primarily an adding machine that could add and subtract numbers.

Apple 1 (1976)

Initially conceived by Steve Wozniak (a.k.a. "Woz") as a build-it-yourself kit computer, it was initially rejected by his bosses at Hewlett-Packard. Undeterred, he offered it to Silicon Valley's Homebrew Computer Club and, together with his friend Steve Jobs, managed to sell 50 pre-built models to The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California. The suggested retail price: $666. Though sales were low (200 units sold), the machine paved the way for the smash success of the Apple II (which sold in millions).

Apple II (1977)

It became an instant success when released in 1977 with its printed circuit motherboard, switching power supply, keyboard, case assembly, manual, game paddles, A/C, powercord, and cassette tape with the computer game "Breakout." When hooked up to a color television set, this produced brilliant color graphics.

Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) (1951)

It is the first general-purpose computer for commercial use. The descendants of the this line continue today as products of the Unisys company.

Apollo Guidance Computer (1968)

It made its debut orbiting the Earth on Apollo 7. A year later, it steered Apollo 11 to the lunar surface. Astronauts communicated with this computer by punching two-digit codes and the appropriate syntactic category into the display and keyboard unit.

Vacuum Tube

Main component of most computers before.

NEAC 2203 (1960)

Manufactured by the Nippon Electric Company (NEC), the drum-based machine was one of the earliest transistorized Japanese computers. It was used for business, scientific and engineering applications.

Kenbak - 1 (1971)

Often considered the world's first "personal computer". This was touted as an easy-to-use educational tool, but it failed to sell more than several dozen units. Lacking a microprocessor, it had only 256 bytes of computing power and its only output was a series of blinking lights. It closed its doors in 1973 after selling only 40 units. First attempt at personal computer.

Colossus (1943)

The first _______________ is operational at Bletchley Park. It was designed by British engineer Tommy Flowers. The _____________ was designed to break the complex Lorenz ciphers used by the Nazis during WWII.

Manchester Mark I (1949)

The first stored program digital computer. Prototype for the Ferranti Mark I.

DEC PDP-8 (1965)

The first successful commercial minicomputer made by the Digital Equipment Corporation. It sold more than 50,000 units upon its release, the most of any computer up to that time. The PDP-8 sold for $18,000, one-fifth the price of a small IBM 360 mainframe. The speed, small size, and reasonable cost enabled the PDP-8 to go into thousands of manufacturing plants, small businesses, and scientific laboratories.

BASIC

The software language for the Altair 8800.

Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) (1947)

The successor of the ENIAC. Made by the same designers: Mauchly and Eckert. The design would implement a number of important architectural and logical improvements conceived during the ENIAC's construction and would incorporate a high-speed serial access memory.

David Packard and Bill Hewlett

Their first product was the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, which rapidly became a popular piece of test equipment for engineers.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen

They licensed BASIC as the software language for the computer.

VAX 11/780 (1978)

This computer from Digital Equipment Corp. featured the ability to address up to 4.3 gigabytes of virtual memory, providing hundreds of times the cap. VAX VMS (Virtual Memory System)

Hewlett Packard 150 (1983)

Touch-Screen Computer.

NeXT (1988)

Was also created by Steve Jobs. Got removed to Apple because of a problem.

Deep Blue (1997)

A chess-playing expert system run on a unique purpose-built IBM supercomputer. It was the first computer to win a game, and the first to win a match, against a reigning world champion under regular time controls Garry Kasparov.

Lady Ada Lovelace (1815 - 1852)

English mathematician, first computer programmer; known for her work on the Analytical Engine.

Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) (1946)

Was initially commissioned for the use in World War II, but not completed until one year after the war had ended. When this computer was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain". It had a speed of one thousand times that of electro-mechanical machines. ENIAC contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It weighed more than 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8 by 3 by 100 feet (2.4 m × 0.9 m × 30 m), took up 1800 square feet (167 m2), and consumed 150 kW of power. Speed was 5000 operations per second. It was conceived and designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.

Commodore 64 (1982)

Was more popular back in the days.

4.77 MHz Intel 8088 Microprocessor and Microsoft´s MS-DOS Operating System

What microprocessor and OS did IBM PC ran?

Z1-Z4 (1936 - 1943)

World's first commercial digital computer design by Zuse.