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Questions and Answers
Who were the founders of Hewlett-Packard?
What was the first product of Hewlett-Packard?
Which computer is considered the first electronic digital computer?
What year was the Colossus operational?
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What was the significant characteristic of ENIAC when it was announced in 1946?
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Which computer was designed after ENIAC and by the same designers?
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What was the primary purpose for which ENIAC was initially commissioned?
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What was the Manchester Mark I primarily known for?
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Who is credited with defining the stored-program computer architecture on which the Manchester Mark I was based?
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What significant contribution did the EDSAC make in 1949?
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What does UNIVAC stand for?
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Which system was designed to help track radar data in real-time for the Air Force?
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What significant contribution did Alan Turing make during World War II?
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What was the Harvard Mark-1 primarily used for?
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What year did EDSAC first run its initial programs?
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What was the purpose of the 'Alan Turing law' enacted in 2016?
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Which of the following computers is known as the prototype for the Ferranti Mark I?
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Which of the following is NOT associated with Alan Turing's legacy?
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What technological features did SAGE include?
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What was one of the main reasons Konrad Zuse began creating his computers?
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What role did Winston Churchill credit Turing with in World War II?
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Which computing machine did Howard Aiken conceive?
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What notable event occurred involving Alan Turing in 2009?
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What was the primary function of the Interface Message Processor (IMP) in the development of the ARPANET?
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Which characteristic was notable about the Kenbak-1?
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What was the original selling price of the Altair 8800?
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What was the significance of the Apple I in the personal computer market?
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What was the notable feature of the Altair 8800's memory?
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Which person is generally credited with inventing the term 'personal computer'?
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How many units of Kenbak-1 were sold before the company closed in 1973?
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What innovative aspect did the IMP contribute to computer networking?
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What was significant about the IBM System/360 released in 1964?
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Which computer was noted as the fastest machine in the world for a period in the 1960s?
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What was a key feature of the DEC PDP-8 released in 1965?
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How did the Apollo Guidance Computer interact with astronauts during missions?
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Which statement correctly describes the initial investment for the IBM System/360?
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What technological transition did IBM undergo when releasing the System/360?
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What was a primary use case for the PDP-8 minicomputer?
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Which company manufactured the NEAC 2203 computer?
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Study Notes
Early Computing
- Alan Turing was a British mathematician who played a pivotal role in breaking the Enigma code during World War II
- Turing is considered the father of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence
- Turing was persecuted for his homosexuality, received an apology from then Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009, and a posthumous pardon from Queen Elizabeth II in 2013
- The "Alan Turing Law" was passed in 2016, pardoning thousands posthumously who had been convicted of offenses related to same-sex relationships before homosexuality was decriminalized in England and Wales in 1967
- Konrad Zuse (1910-1995), was a German civil engineer, inventor and computer pioneer
- Zuse created Z1-Z4 computers between 1936 and 1943
- Zuse was motivated to create computing machines because of the difficulties of using mechanical calculators for building and road construction calculations
- Charles Babbage is associated with the Analytical Engine
- Konrad Zuse is associated with Z1-Z4 computers
- Herman Hollerith is associated with the Tabulating Machine
- The Harvard Mark 1 was a room-sized, relay-based calculator, completed in 1937, and was made possible by collaboration between Harvard Professor Howard Aiken and IBM
- The Harvard Mark 1 was used for calculating mathematical tables
- Hewlett-Packard was founded in 1939 by David Packard and Bill Hewlett
- The first Hewlett-Packard product was the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, used for engineering test equipment
- Eight HP 200B oscilloscopes were used for sound effects in the 1940 Walt Disney film "Fantasia"
First Electronic Computers
- John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry built the Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC) between 1939 and 1942 at Iowa State College (now University)
- The ABC is considered the first electronic digital computer
- The ABC was the subject of a patent dispute with the ENIAC designers, which was resolved in 1973 in favor of the ABC
- The Colossus was designed by British Engineer Tommy Flowers, and was used to break the Lorenz cipher used by the Nazis during World War II
- The first Colossus became operational in 1943 at Bletchley Park, a British code-breaking center during World War II
ENIAC and its Successors
- The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was initially commissioned for wartime use, but was not completed until 1946
- John Mauchly and J.Presper Eckert designed the ENIAC
- ENIAC contained vacuum tubes, diodes, relays, resistors, capacitors, and hand-soldered joints
- The ENIAC weighed more than 30 tons, and consumed 150 KW of power
- The ENIAC was significantly faster than electro-mechanical machines of the time (around one thousand times faster)
- The Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) was a successor to the ENIAC, designed by Mauchly and Eckert
- The EDVAC was designed to utilize a high-speed serial access memory
Early Stored-Program Computers
- The Manchester Mark I was the first stored-program digital computer, released in 1949
- The Manchester Mark I was a prototype for the Ferranti Mark I
- John von Neumann (1903-1957) was a Hungarian-born American mathematician credited with defining the stored-program computer architecture on which the Manchester Mark I was based
- The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was the second successfully functional electronic digital stored-program computer
- The EDSAC was built by Maurice Wilkes and a team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England
- The EDSAC ran its first programs on May 6, 1949, which calculated a table of square numbers and identified prime numbers
Early Mainframes
- The UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was the fist general-purpose computer for commercial use
- The UNIVAC was released in 1951
- The UNIVAC was used to tabulate the results of the 1952 US presidential election
- The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), released in 1954, was a large computerized air defense system used by the US Air Force to track radar data in real time
- SAGE utilized technical advances including modems and graphical displays
- The NEAC 2203 was released in 1960 by the Nippon Electric Company (NEC)
- The NEAC 2203 was one of the earliest transistorized Japanese computers
- The NEAC 2203 was used for business, scientific, and engineering tasks
- Control Data Corporation's CDC 6600, designed by Seymour Cray, was considered the fastest computer in the world for a time
- The CDC 6600 was released in 1964
The Rise of IBM
- IBM announced the System/360 in 1964
- The IBM System/360 was a family of six computers and 40 peripherals that could work together, with a $5 billion investment
- The IBM System/360 was very popular, receiving around 1000 orders per month in the first two years after release
- The release coincided with a transition from discrete transistors to integrated circuits, and a shift from punched-card equipment to electronic computer systems for IBM
- The development of integrated circuits led to the development of the chip, which enabled the shrinking of computers into smaller and smaller sizes
Early Minicomputers
- Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) released the PDP-8 in 1965
- The PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer
- Over 50,000 PDP-8 units were sold, more than any other computer at the time
- The PDP-8 was relatively inexpensive ($18,000), making it more accessible to smaller businesses and laboratories
- The PDP-8 was designed to be small in size and capable of high speeds
- The Apollo Guidance Computer was introduced with the Apollo 7 mission in 1968
- The Apollo Guidance Computer was used for the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969
- Astronauts communicated with the Apollo Guidance Computer using a display and keyboard, entering two-digit codes for instructions
- The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was a critical component of the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)
- The IMP was the first generation of gateways, which are today known as routers
- The IMP was released in 1969
- The ARPANET was the world's first operational packet switching network, a predecessor to the modern Internet
Early Personal Computers
- The Kenbak-1, released in 1971, was often considered the first personal computer
- The Kenbak-1 was marketed as an educational tool, but was commercially unsuccessful, selling only 40 units
- The Kenbak-1 used a simpler computer design that lacked a microprocessor, and had limited capabilities
- The Altair 8800, released in 1975, was a more successful personal computer
- Bill Gates and Paul Allen licensed the BASIC software language for the Altair 8800
- The Altair 8800 was designed by Ed Roberts
- The Altair 8800 included 256 bytes of memory, expandable to 64K
- The Apple 1, released in 1976, was initially conceived by Steve Wozniak as a build-it-yourself computer kit
- The Apple 1 was initially rejected by Wozniak's bosses at Hewlett-Packard
- Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold 50 pre-built Apple 1 computers to The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California
- The suggested retail price of the Apple 1 was $666
- The Apple 1 sold around 200 units
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