2. Birth Of Electronic Computer (1930-1951)

Question 1

Claude Shannon (1916-2001)

Answer 1

• 1937: introduced the application of Boolean Logic in creating digital computing machines
• 1948: published “A mathematical theory of communication” which establishes the principles for encoding information so it might be reliably transmitted electronically
• Is considered the Father of the modern Information Age

Question 2

Alan Turing (1912-1954)

Answer 2

• Led the World War II research group that broke the code for the Enigma machine
• Proposed a simple abstract universal machine model for defining computability – The Turing Machine
• Devised the “Turing Test” for Artificial Intelligence

Question 3

The Enigma Machine

Answer 3

• Invented in 1918, it was the most sophisticated code system of its day, and a priority for the Allies to break it as the Germans believed it was unbreakable

Question 4

Alan Turing and Colossus

Answer 4

• constructed an electronic computing machine in 1943 to help decrypt German coded messages

Question 5

IBM Harvard Mark 1

Answer 5

• Howard Aiken (Harvard University) Thomas Watson (IBM chairman)
• IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), installed at Harvard University in 1944. It was 51 feet long, weighed 5 tons, had 750,000 parts including 72 accumulators and 60 sets of rotary switches

Question 6

John W. Mauchly (1907-1980) and J. Prosper Eckert (1919-1995)

Answer 6

• headed the ENIAC team at the Moore School of Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
• ENIAC: Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer is the first general-purpose electronic digital computer
• Commissioned by the United States Army for computing ballistic firing tables

Question 7

ENIAC

Answer 7

• Noted for massive scale and redundant design
• Used vacuum tubes to control the flow of electrical signals
• Decimal internal coding
• Operational in 1946
• manual programming of boards, switches and “function table”
Vacuum tubes are large, generate a lot of heat and are prone to fail
Early Computer Programming was slow, tedious and repetitious

Question 8

John Von Neumann (1903-1954)

Answer 8

• Visits the Moore School in 1944
• Prepares a draft report for an automatic programmable device (later called EDVAC)
• Comes up with the “stored program” concept
• Publishes ideas (with Goldstine and Burks) in 1946
• Designs the IAS (Institute for Advanced Studies) machine which becomes operational in 1951

Question 9

Von Neumann Architecture

Answer 9

• “stored program”
• Binary internal coding
• CPU-Memory-I/O organization
• “fetch-decode-execute” instruction cycle