History-of-Computers.pdf

Computing 2020 What is a computer? The first use of the word computer: The term computer was originally a job role. The first computers were actually people (usually women) who did 'computation' on paper using slide rules. Most of the early calculations were for mathematical table...

Computing 2020 What is a computer? The first use of the word computer: The term computer was originally a job role. The first computers were actually people (usually women) who did 'computation' on paper using slide rules. Most of the early calculations were for mathematical tables, bomb trajectories and rocketry calculations.  John Napier I am a mathematician, physicist, astronomer and astrologer. John Napier invented “logarithms” which use lookup tables to find the solution to otherwise tedious and error-prone mathematical calculations.  Blaise Pascal This famous French philosopher and mathematician invented the first calculator in 1645 to help with collecting taxes. It could add and subtract by rotating dials.  Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz Leibnitz invented a machine in 1674, around 30 years after Pascal invented his machine. He called it the “Stepped Reckoner” and it could not only add and subtract, but multiply and divide as well.  Joseph-Marie Jacquard Joseph-Marie Jacquard was a weaver. In 1804, he got the bright idea of adapting the use of punched cards used in musical boxes to control his looms. His invention provided a model for the input and output of data in the electro- mechanical and electronic computing industry.  Charles Babbage Charles Babbage designed the “Difference Engine” and “Analytical Engine” in the early 19th Century, This was the blueprint used in the invention of the modern electronic digital computer.  I also invented the Charles Babbage cowcatcher, dynamometer, standard The Difference Engine was never fully built. railroad gauge, uniform postal rates, occulting lights for lighthouses, Babbage drew up the Greenwich time signal, plans for it while still a heliograph student at Cambridge University. ophthalmoscope. But I HATE street musicians!  Lady Augusta Ada She was the daughter of the famous romantic poet Lord Byron and she was a brilliant mathematician who helped Babbage in his work. She documented his work, which Babbage could never bother to do and also wrote programs to be run on Babbage’s machines She is recognised as the first computer programmer.  Alan Turing Alan Turing published a paper called On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem. The paper proved that a machine capable of processing a stream of 1s and 0s (binary) according to programmed instructions would be capable of solving any problem. John Vincent Atanasoff I invented the ABC, a digital computer, so- called because it processed data using 1s and 0s. Being binary, the data could easily be represented electronically since switches naturally have two states—on and off.  Howard Aiken In 1944, while a professor of physics at Harvard, Howard Aiken was supported by IBM to build the ASCC computer (Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator). The computer had mechanical relays (switches) which flipped backwards and forwards to represent mathematical data. It was huge and weighed 35 tons with 500 miles of wiring.  Howard Aiken As computers were so large and were purpose built for each company, they tended to be very expensive. Howard Aiken was asked about the future of electronic computers. I estimate that six His answer was as follows… electronic digital computers would be sufficient to satisfy the computing needs of the entire United States.  Dr. Grace Murray Hopper Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper, worked with Howard Aiken from 1944 and used his machine for gunnery and ballistics calculation for the US Bureau of Ordnance’s Computation project. Dr. Hopper greatly simplified programming by inventing the “COBOL” language which was the first programming language to use English for variable names and logical operations rather than machine code.  Dr. Grace Murray Hopper She also invented the term “debugging” when a moth flew into the computer and caused an error.  Jack Kilby Jack Kilby invented the first integrated circuit in 1959, which meant computers could become smaller and more reliable. These were first used inside calculators.  Bill Gates At the age of 13 Bill Gates became interested in programming computers. He sold a computer he built and programmed to Seattle to allow them to count their city traffic when he was still a teenager.  Bill Gates Whilst at Harvard University he developed a programming language for his computer. He decided to drop out of university so he could concentrate all his time writing programs for his computer and started a company called Microsoft to develop software for the newly emerging personal computer market.  Bill Gates Bill Gates managed to talk IBM into letting Microsoft make the operating system and Gates proceeded to make a fortune from MS-DOS. Over the next few years he made billions of dollars and has donated a lot of his fortune to improving the lives of people in developing countries.  Steve Jobs Steve Jobs also dropped out of university at the age of 21 to start his company Apple with another college dropout Steve Wozniak.  Apple In 1976 this “Apple I” was one of the first home computers and was sold for $600  Steve Jobs The immense success of Apple 2 revolutionised the personal computer market with the invention of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) which made using the computer very user friendly. This made Steve Jobs a millionaire at the age of 25. 1955 - 2011  Steve Jobs In 2000 digital music players were big and bulky or small but played terrible quality music. Apple saw the opportunity and announced the release of the iPod in 2001, the first digital portable music player which changed the course of media entertainment and was followed with equal success by the iPhone and iPad.  Larry Page and Sergey Brin Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford University. They began to work on developing a search engine called “BackRub”  Google They decide to rename BackRub to Google – a play on the word “googol” a mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. This was to show that it was their mission to organise the seemingly infinite amount of information on the internet.  Google From a small company that started in a garage to one of the world’s largest companies with many diverse areas such as its own email system known as Gmail, Google Maps and Google Books. On average, Google has been acquiring a company a week since 2010 including YouTube, Motorola Mobility and Android. In 2019 Google was estimated to be worth $927 billion. Key points in modern computing history 1984 Apple introduces the Macintosh computer 2001 Microsoft Windows XP is released 1990 Microsoft introduces Windows 3.0 2005 Google purchases Android 1992 Microsoft introduces Windows 3.1 2005 YouTube was founded and appears online 1996 BackRub was created and launched onto Stamford 2006 Google buys YouTube Universities’ servers 1997 BackRub given a new home and changed to the name 2006 Nintendo releases the Wii Google. 2000 Bill Gates relinquishes his title as head of Microsoft and 2007 Apple introduces the iPhone Microsoft Windows 2000 was released 2001 Wikipedia was founded 2007 Microsoft releases Microsoft Windows Vista and Office 2007 2010 Apple introduces the iPad 7.3.4 Artificial Intelligence What is intelligence? As you will learn, we are already surrounded by AI, whether that be the route finding software in the maps app on your mobile phone, that enemy combatant in your FPS console game or the recommendation software used to suggest products to you based on your previous purchases. https://youtu.be/mJeNghZXtMo What is AI? https://youtu.be/kWmX3pd1f10 Basics of AI There are a few basic goals of AI research. These are to produce machines or software that are capable of: reasoning (making decisions) representing knowledge forward planning learning natural language processing (communication) perception (sensing an environment) move and manipulate objects Video 1 Boston Dynamics – Atlas Robotics https://youtu.be/_sBBaNYex3E Video 2 Conversations between robots https://youtu.be/Qh2yT-AL1V8