Grace Hopper: A Pioneer in Computer Science

Pioneers in Computer Science

• Grace Murray Hopper is renowned for creating the first compiler and developing COBOL, a language used for government and business data processing for decades.
• She was a Rear Admiral of the US Navy.

Debugging Origin

• The term "debugging" originated from an incident where a two-inch moth caused a malfunction in the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator at Harvard University on September 9, 1947.
• Hopper discovered and removed the moth from the relay, documenting the "first actual case of bug being found."

Mark II Computer

• The Mark II is an electromechanical computer designed by Mark Aiken and Hopper, along with other Mark computers.
• It was used for addition and multiplication to meet the computing needs of the United States.

Charles Babbage

• Charles Babbage is recognized as the inventor of the first computer, conceiving a steam-driven calculating machine, the Analytical Engine.
• Although the Analytical Engine was not built during his lifetime due to lack of funding, his son Henry completed a portion of the machine in 1901.
• The London Science Museum completed a working version of the Analytical Engine in 1991.
• Babbage is known as the "Father of the Computer" due to his radical ideas and concepts.

The Imitation Game

• The film "The Imitation Game" stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, a mathematical genius who played a pivotal role in decoding the German Enigma machine during World War II.
• The Enigma machine was a complex cipher system used by German forces for battlefield communication.
• Turing's efforts in breaking the Enigma code with the help of fellow mathematicians were instrumental in shortening the war and saving countless lives.

Alan Turing's Contributions

• Turing introduced the concept of the Turing Machine, considered the precursor to modern computers, in his 1936 paper "On Computable Numbers."
• This theoretical model of computation laid the foundation for computer science as we know it today.
• Turing is regarded as the father of modern computer science.

The First Modern Electromechanical Computers

• Konrad Zuse built the first working, programmable electromechanical digital computer, the Z3, in 1941.
• The Z3 was “Turing-complete,” meaning it could simulate any general-purpose computer, albeit slowly.
• Prior to the Z3, Zuse developed the Z1, a binary mechanical calculator, and the Z2, which used 600 telephone relays.

ENIAC

• ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) is considered the first electronic computer for general-purpose use.
• It was developed from 1943 to 1946 to help calculate artillery firing tables for the US Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory.
• ENIAC had a massive size, occupying almost 1800 square feet, and contained nearly 20,000 vacuum tubes and other components.
• It required 200 kilowatts of electricity and weighed over 30 tons.