INTRO COMPUTING (1)

• Prehistoric Computing uses


  Fingers and Abacus
• earliest form of computing involved using our fingers for counting


  word “digit” (meaning “finger”) still refers to numerical symbols like “4”
• Abacus,

  an ancient Oriental device, allowed rapid addition and subtraction by sliding beads along parallel wires
• Wilhelm Schickard’s Mechanical Calculator (1623)


  his only working copy was destroyed in a fire in 1624, and Schickard and his family perished during the Thirty Years War
• Wilhelm SchickardHis design remained unknown until 1957 when a complete description with sketches was found in a letter to Kepler
• Blaise Pascal’s Calculator (17th Century
• French mathematician Blaise Pascal is often credited with inventing the first calculator
• His device, capable of addition and subtraction, was inferior to Schickard’s calculator
• Despite this, Pascal successfully marketed his calculators,
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the Leibniz Wheel (1673)
• German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz expanded upon Pascal’s idea
• In 1673, he built a calculator known as the Leibniz wheel


  Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine (1823)
• English mathematician Charles Babbage designed the Difference Engine in 1823
• Difference Engine was intended to tabulate tables of functions using the method of finite differences
• It aimed to create completely accurate tables, addressing the errors in British navigational tables that affected British shipping


  Difference engine
• Babbage’s Difference Engine was never fully constructed
• Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine (1833
• It would be the first truly general-purpose programmable computer


  Analytical engine
• Analytical Engine was never built during Babbage’s lifetime, it laid the foundation for modern computing concepts
• Key features of the Analytical Engine

  Processor: It had its own processor capable of performing arithmetic and logical operations.
• Key features of the Analytical Engine:

  Secondary Storage: Programs were stored on a belt of punched paste cards, similar to Joseph Marie Jacquard’s loom
• Key features of the Analytical Engine:

  Input and Output: It had input and output devices.
• Herman Hollerith and Punched Card Tabulating Machine (1889)
• American engineer Herman Hollerith took up the idea of using punched cards
• In 1889, he contracted with the U.S. Census Bureau to process the 1890 census data automatically
• Hollerith invented an electronic tabulating machine that was highly successful
• His efforts led to the establishment of the Tabulating Machine Company, which later evolved into IBM
• IBM and the Mark I Computer

  • In 1939, Howard H. Aiken collaborated with IBM to create an advanced version of Babbage’s Analytical Engine. • The resulting Mark I electromechanical computer, completed in 1944, performed scientific computations more accurately and quickly. • It stored programs on punched tape, similar to Jacquard’s punched cards.
• ENIAC and UNIVAC

  Near the end of World War II, John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert built the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).
• ENIAC was the first electronic digital computer, designed for tabulating firing tables for the U.S. Army
• Post-war, Mauchly and Eckert founded a private company and developed the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC)—the first commercial computer for both business and scientific use..
• John von Neumann’s Influence:


  Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann proposed storing programs directly in a computer’s memory. • This concept, incorporated into the design of the IAS computer, laid the foundation for modern computers.
• Vacuum Tubes to Magnetic Core Memory


  In the 1940s, computers relied on vacuum tubes for data storage, but these were unreliable, bulky, and power-hungry.
• By the 1950s, magnetic core memory replaced vacuum tubes. It used tiny magnetic rings threaded on wire mesh racks, making memory faster, cheaper, and more compact.
• In 1948, transistors were invented at Bell Labs by William Shockley and associates.
• Transistors proved effective for electronic data storage and processing, eventually replacing magnetic core memory by 1959.
• Computing


  HUMAN PROCESS that involves recognizing and clarifying a problem, devising a method for solving the problem, executing the solution, and then correcting and revising the solution
• Algorithm


  Second Stage process of Computing • A step-by-step procedure for solving a problem
• Computer Hardware


  • The CPU controls nearly all the activities the computer performs