INTRO TO COMPUTING

• Prehistoric Computing


  uses fingers and abacus
• Fingers


  earliest form of computing involved for counting.
• The word “digit” (meaning “finger”)


  still refers to numerical symbols like “4” and “9.”
• Abacus


  ancient Oriental device, allowed rapid addition and subtraction by sliding beads along parallel wires
• When was Wilhelm Schickard’s Mechanical Calculator made


  1623
• Wilhelm Schickard


  his only working copy was destroyed in a fire in 1624, and he and his family perished during the Thirty Years War.
• Wilhelm Schickard 


  His design remained unknown until 1957 when a complete description with sketches was found in a letter to Kepler
• When was Blaise Pascal’s Calculator


  17th Century
• Blaise Pascal 


  French mathematician who is often credited with inventing the first calculator.
• Blaise Pascal


  His device, capable of addition and subtraction, was inferior to Schickard’s calculator.
• Blaise Pascal


  Despite this, he successfully marketed his calculators, and several of them still exist today
• What did Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz make


  Leibniz Wheel (1673)
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz


  German mathematician that expanded upon Pascal’s idea.
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz


  In 1673, he built a calculator known as the Leibniz wheel
• Charles Babbage


  English mathematician who designed the Difference Engine in 1823.
• Charles Babbage's 


  Difference Engine was intended to tabulate tables of functions using the method of finite differences.
• Charles Babbage's Difference Engine


  aimed to create completely accurate tables, addressing the errors in British navigational tables that affected British shipping.
• Was Charles's difference engine fully constructed?

  No
• Babbage's work designed in 1833


  Analytical Engine
• Charle's Analytical engine 


  would be the first truly general-purpose programmable computer.
• Although the Analytical Engine was never built during Babbage’s lifetime, it laid the foundation for modern computing concepts
• Key features of the Analytical Engine:


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


  It included memory for storing instructions and data.
• 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:


  It had input and output devices.
• Herman Hollerith is credited to his what invention


  Punched Card Tabulating Machine (1889):
• Herman Hollerith 


  American engineer that took up the idea of using punched cards
• Herman Hollerith 


  In 1889, he contracted with the U.S. Census Bureau to process the 1890 census data automatically
• Herman Hollerith 


  invented an electronic tabulating machine that was highly successful.
• Herman Hollerith 


  His efforts led to the establishment of the Tabulating Machine Company, which later evolved into IBM
• Howard H. Aiken


  collaborated with IBM to create an advanced version of Babbage’s Analytical Engine. (1939)
• Howard H. Aiken w IBM work


  resulted Mark I electromechanical computer, completed in 1944, performed scientific computations more accurately and quickly
• Howard Aiken's Mark l


  It stored programs on punched tape, similar to Jacquard’s punched cards.
• Who made Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).


  John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert near the end of WW ll
• 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


  UNIVAC - Universal Automatic Computer
• UNIVAC

  the first commercial computer for both business and scientific use..
• John Von Neumann


  Hungarian-American mathematician that proposed storing programs directly in a computer’s memory.
• Neumann's concept (storing programs in computer's memory) was


  incorporated into the design of the IAS computer, laid the foundation for modern computers.
• In the 1940s, computers relied on vacuum tubes for data storage, but these were unreliable, bulky, and power-hungry