History and Origin of Computers: Introduction Quiz

A computer is an electronic machine that collects information, stores it, processes it according to user instructions, and then returns the ______.

A computer is a programmable electronic device that performs arithmetic and logical operations automatically using a set of instructions provided by the ______.

Early Computing Devices: ABACUS, Napier’s Bone, Pascaline, Stepped Reckoner or Leibniz wheel, Difference Engine, Analytical Engine, Tabulating machine, Differential Analyzer, Mark I were all significant in the ______ of computers.

ABACUS is a primitive computing device that uses beads on rods to perform ______ operations.

The Analytical Engine, designed by Charles Babbage, is considered the first general-purpose mechanical ______.

The Mark I, developed by Harvard University, was one of the earliest programmable ______.

1801 Joseph Marie Jacquard devised a loom that employed punched wooden cards to automatically weave cloth designs. This technique was later used in early computers as a form of ____________.

1822 Charles Babbage invented the steam-powered calculating machine capable of calculating number tables. This invention was known as the ____________ Engine.

1890 Herman Hollerith creates the punch card technique used to calculate the 1880 U.S. census. He would go on to start the corporation that would become ____________.

1848 The world’s first computer program was written by Ada Lovelace. She included a step-by-step tutorial on how to compute Bernoulli numbers using Babbage’s machine. This program was written for the ____________ Engine.

1930 Differential Analyzer was the first large-scale automatic general-purpose mechanical analogue computer invented and built by ____________ Bush.

1936 Alan Turing had an idea for a universal machine, which he called the Turing machine, that could compute anything that could be computed. This idea laid the foundation for modern ____________.

1941 Konrad Zuse completed his Z3 machine, the world’s first digital computer. However, the machine was destroyed during a World War II bombing strike on ____________.

1941 J.V. Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry devise a computer capable of solving 29 equations at the same time. The first time a computer can store data in its ____________ memory.

1945 University of Pennsylvania academics John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert create an Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). It was Turing-complete and capable of solving “a vast class of numerical problems” by ____________, earning it the title of “Grandfather of computers.”

1953 Grace Hopper creates the first computer language, which becomes known as COBOL, which stands for COmmon, Business-Oriented Language. It allowed a computer user to offer the computer instructions in ____________-like words rather than numbers.