History of Computers Flashcards
1
Q
What is a Computer?
A
- an electronic machine, device
for performing calculations and controlling operations that can be expressed either in logical or numerical terms. - an electronic device, operating under the control instructions stored in its own memory that can accept data (input), process the data according to specified rules, produce information
(output), and store the information for future use. - A programmed device with a group of instructions to perform specific tasks and generate results at a really high speed
2
Q
Functionalities of a Computer
A
● Takes data as input.
● Stores the data / instruction in its memory and use them when required.
● Processes the data and converts it into useful information.
● Generates the output.
● Controls all the above four steps.
3
Q
The applications domain of a computer depends totally on ___________
A
human creativity and imagination
4
Q
What areas do the applications of a computer cover?
A
education, industries, government, medicine, scientific research, low and music and arts.
5
Q
Applications of a Computer
A
● Millions of complex calculations can be done in a mere fraction of time
● Difficult decisions can be made with unerring accuracy for comparatively little cost
6
Q
Characteristics of a Computer
A
● Speed
● Accuracy
● Diligence
● Reliability
● Storage Capability
● Versatility
● Resource Sharing
SAD RESERVER
7
Q
Advantages of a Computer
A
● Multitasking
● Speed
● Cost/Stores huge
● Accuracy
● Data Security
● Task Completer
● Communication
● Productivity
● Reduce workload
● Reliability
● Storage
MS. CAD TC PURRSE
8
Q
Disadvantages of a Computer
A
● Virus and Hacking Attacks
● Online Cyber Crime
● High-Cost
● Distractions/Disruptions
● Increase waste and impacts the environment
● Health Problems
9
Q
What is
Hardware
A
a general term for equipment that can be touched by hand.
10
Q
For a computer system, what is a hardware
A
make up how the computer will look like and it is what we are actually using
11
Q
Basic Hardware of a Desktop
A
● CPU (Central Processing Unit)
● Monitor
● Keyboard
● Mouse
12
Q
Other Common Computer Hardwares (Peripheral Devices)
A
● Webcam
● Microphone/Headset
● Speaker
● Printers
● Power Supply
13
Q
What is a Software?
A
● collection of computer programs and related data that provides the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it
● what enables us to use the computer once we have the hardware ready
● anything and everything
that we are seeing inside the computer or monitor, e.g.
Games, Windows, OS, etc.
14
Q
3 Types of Software
A
● System Software
● Programming Software
● Application Software
15
Q
What is Peopleware?
A
● anything that has to do with
the role of people in the development or use of
computer software and hardware systems
● work done by people for the Computer industry
16
Q
Other aspects peopleware covers
A
issues related to the development of software and hardware systems such as developer productivity, teamwork, group dynamics,
the psychology of programming, project management, organizational factors, human interface design, and human-machine-interaction
17
Q
Dataware is also known as
A
Data Warehouse or Enterprise Data Warehouse.
18
Q
What is Dataware?
A
central repository of data which is created by integrating data from multiple disparate
sources
19
Q
What is in the bottom tier of data warehouse architecture?
A
consists of a data warehouse
server, usually a relational database system, which
collects, cleanses, and transforms data from multiple data sources through a process known as Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) or a process known as Extract, Load, and Transform (ELT).
20
Q
What is in the middle tier of data warehouse architecture?
A
consists of an OLAP (i.e. online analytical processing) server which enables fast query
speeds.
21
Q
Three types of OLAP can be used in the data warehouse architecture’s middle tier, which is
A
ROLAP, MOLAP and HOLAP
22
Q
Type of OLAP model used in the data warehouse architecture’s middle tier is dependent on
A
the type of database system that exists
23
Q
What is in the top tier of data warehouse architecture?
A
represented by some kind of front-end user interface or reporting tool, which enables end users to conduct ad-hoc data analysis on their business
data.
24
Q
What is a Personal Computer?
A
A small, single-user computer based on a microprocessor
25
What makes up a PC?
● keyboard for entering data
● monitor for displaying information
● storage device for saving data.
26
What is a mobile computer?
A personal computer you can carry from place to place
27
What are mobile devices?
A computing device small enough to hold in the palm of your hand.
28
What is a Game Console?
a specialized computer system
designed for interactive video gameplay and display.
29
Video Game Consoles functions components
● functions like a PC and is built with the same essential components, including a central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU) and random access
memory (RAM)
30
To offset costs, most video game console manufacturers use _________
older CPU versions
31
What are servers?
a computer that provides data to other computers.
32
What do servers do?
It may serve data to systems on a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network (WAN)
over the internet.
33
What do servers control?
access to the hardware, software, and other resources on a network and provides a
centralized storage area for programs, data, and information.
34
What is a Main Frame
a large, expensive, powerful computer that can handle hundreds or thousands of connected users simultaneously.
35
Mainframes store what
huge amounts of data, instructions, and information.
36
Most major corporations use
mainframes for ________
business activities
37
What is a supercomputer
the fastest, most powerful
computer and the most expensive one.
38
Capabilities of a supercomputer?
capable of processing more than one quadrillion instructions in a single second.
39
Supercomputers are used for
Applications requiring complex, sophisticated mathematical calculations
40
What is embedded computers?
a special-purpose computer that functions as a component in a larger product.
41
Examples of things that contain embedded computers
● Consumer electronics
● Home automation devices
● Automobiles
● Process controllers and robotics
● Computer devices and office
machines
42
In the beginning, when the task was simply counting
or adding, people used either their _________ or _______
along lines in the sand.
fingers or pebbles
43
Who built the abacus
People in Asia Minor
44
The abacus allows
allowed users to do calculations using a
system of sliding beads arranged on a rack
45
What are Napier's Bones
a manual calculating device using strips of ivory or other types of material
that are divided into sections
46
Naper's bones sections are
marked with numbers or digits, primarily used for multiplication and division
47
Napier's bones method had its origins in
lattice multiplication
48
Purpose of napiers bones
quickly finding quotients and products of numbers
49
Napier's Bones inventor
John Napier
50
Napier's Bones published in what year
1617
51
What is a Slide Rule
device consisting of graduated scales capable of relative movement, by means of which simple calculations may be carried out mechanically.
52
Typical slide rules contain scales for
multiplying, dividing, and
extracting square roots, and some also contain scales
for calculating trigonometric functions and
logarithms.
53
earliest known logarithmic rule is also known as
Gunter's scale or the gunter
54
who invented the earliest known logarithmic rule
Edmund Gunter (1581-1626)
55
gunter's scale aided
seamen with nautical calculations
56
Who designed the first adjustable logarithmic rule (circular)
William Oughtred
57
What year was the first adjustable logarithmic rule designed?
1632
58
Who designed the first linear slide rule
William Oughtred
59
Who invented the familiar inner sliding rule?
Robert Bissaker
60
Inner sliding rule invented in
1654
61
Who invented the Pascaline
Blaise Pascal
62
What year was the Pascaline made
1642
63
What is the Pascaline
first functional automatic
calculator
first calculator or adding machine to be produced in any quantity and actually used
64
Pascaline is also called
Arithmetic Machine
65
Pascaline could only do
addition and subtraction, with numbers being entered by manipulating its
dials.
66
Pascal invented the machine for
his father, a tax collector, so it was the first business machine too (if one does not count the abacus)
67
Stepped Reckoner designed and built in
1671 and 1673
68
Who built the Stepped Reckoner
Gottfried Wilhem von Leibniz
69
Stepped Reckoner expanded on whose ideas
Blaise Pascal
70
Stepped Reckoner did multiplication by
repeating addition and shifting
71
Difference Machine designed and partially built in
1820s and '30s
72
Difference Engine built by
Charles Babbage
73
What is the difference engine
an early calculating machine
verging on being the first computer
was a digital device
74
Difference engine operated on
discrete digits rather than smooth quantities, and the digits were decimal (0–9),
represented by positions on toothed wheels, rather than the binary digits (“bits”) that the German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried
Wilhelm von Leibniz had favoured (but did not
use) in his Step Reckoner
75
Jacquard loom also called
Jacquard attachment or Jacquard mechanism
76
How did jacquard loom work?
in weaving, device incorporated in special looms to control individual warp yarns. It enabled looms to produce fabrics having intricate woven patterns such as tapestry, brocade, and damask, and it has also been adapted to the
production of patterned knitted fabrics
Jacquard’s loom used interchangeable punched cards that controlled the weaving of the cloth so that any desired pattern could be obtained automatically.
77
Jacquard system developed in
1804-1805
78
Jacquard system developed by
Joseph-Marie Jacquard
79
Jacquard system improved on
punched-card
technology of Jacques de Vaucanson’s loom (1745).
80
Attanasoff-Berry Computer inventor
John V. Attanasoff and Clifford E. Berry
81
John V. Atanasoff is credited with
building the first electronic digital computer
82
Atanasoff-Berry Computer constructed from
1939-1942
83
Who constructed the first operational program-controlled calculating machine?
Konrad Zuse
84
first operational program-controlled calculating machine completed construction in
1941
85
What is Harvard Mark 1
an early protocomputer, built
during World War II in the United States.
electronic calculating machine used relays and
electromagnetic components to replace mechanical components.
86
Mark I, which was built as a partnership between _________ and _____ in ______
Harvard Aiken and IBM in 1944
87
Starting in ____, Aiken laid out detailed plans
for a series of four calculating machines of
increasing sophistication, based on different
technologies, from the largely mechanical
Mark I to the electronic Mark IV
1937
88
ENIAC meaning
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
89
ENIAC developed by
John Eckert and John Mauchy
90
ENIAC developed in
1946
91
What is the ENIAC
first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer
Designed specifically for computing values for artillery range tables, it lacked some features that
would have made it a more generally useful
machine.
used plugboards for
communicating instructions to the machine; this had the advantage that, once the
instructions were thus “programmed,” the
machine ran at electronic speed
92
EDVAC meaning
Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer
93
What is the EDVAc
electronic computer to use the stored program
concept introduced by John von Neumann.
94
The concept of a stored-program computer
was introduced in the mid-_____
1940s
95
the idea
of storing _________ as well as ____ in
an _______ was
implemented in _____
instruction codes, data, electrically alterable memory, EDVAC
96
EDSAC meaning
Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator
97
What is the EDSAC
the first full-size stored-program computer
built according to the von
Neumann machine principles enunciated by
the Hungarian American scientist John von
Neumann and, like the Manchester Mark I,
became operational in 1949
built the machine chiefly to study computer
programming issues, which he realized would
become as important as the hardware details.
98
EDSAC built at and by
University of Cambridge, Maurice Wilkes and others
99
EDSAC used _________ for
memory and ________for logic
mercury delay lines, vacuum tubes
100
UNIVAC meaning
Universal Automatic Computer
101
UNIVAC manufactured in
1951
102
UNIVAC marked
real beginning of computer era
103
What is the UNIVAC
one of the earliest commercial computers
designed as a commercial
data-processing computer, intended to replace
the punched-card accounting machines of the
day. It could read 7,200 decimal digits per
second (it did not use binary numbers), making
it by far the fastest business machine yet built.
104
First generation computer were ______________ based machines.
Vacuum Tubes/thermionic value
105
First generations used vacuum tubes for ________ and magnetic drums for _____
circuitry, memory
106
what is magnetic drum
metal cylinder coated with magnetic iron-oxide material on which data and program can be stored.
107
First generation - input was based on _______ and _____
punched cards and paper tape
108
First generation - output was in the form of _____
printouts
109
Characteristics of First Generation Computers
* These computers were based on vacuum tube
technology.
* These were the fastest computing devices of their time.
* These computers were very large, and required a lot of
space for installation.
* These were non-portable and very slow equipments
110
First Generation Year
1940-1956
111
Second Generation Year
1956-1963
112
What is a transistor made of
semiconductor material like germanium and silicon
113
What do transistors have
usually had three leads and
performed electrical functions such as voltage, current or power amplification with low power requirement.
114
In transistors, magnetic cores were used as
primary memory
115
In transistors, magnetic disks were used as
secondary storage devices
116
what did transistors still rely on?
punched cards for input and printouts for output
117
Characteristics of Second Generation Computer
* These machines were based on transistor technology
* These were smaller as compared to the first
generation computers.
* These were more portable and generated less amount of heat.
118
Third Generation Computer What Year
1964 - Early 1970
119
integrated circuit also called
ic
120
what does integrated circuit consist of
a single chip with many components such as transistors and resistors fabricated on it
121
integrated circuit replaced what
individually wired transistor
122
Instead of punched cards and printouts, users
interacted with third generation computers
through ______ and ________ and interfaced
with ______
keyboards, monitors, operating system
123
Characteristic of Third Generation Computer
* These computers were based on integrated circuit (ic) technology.
* They were able to reduce computational time from micro seconds to nano seconds.
* Extensive use of high – level language became
possible
124
Fourth Generation Computer Year
Early 1970s - Till Date
125
Fourth Generation Computer technology was still based on
integrated circuit
126
The fourth generation computers led to an era of ________ and _______
large scale technology (lsi) and very large scale technology (vlsi)
127
LSI technology allowed
thousands of transistors to be constructed on one small slice of silicon material
128
VLSI technology squeezed
squeezed hundreds of thousands of
components on to a single ewp
129
ultra large scale integration (ulsi) increased what
millions of components on to a single ewp
130
Characteristics of Fourth Generation Computers
* Fourth generation computers are microprocessor based systems
* These computers are very small
* GUI and pointing devices enable users to learn to use the computer quickly
* Interconnection of computers leads to better
communication and resource sharing
131
Fifth Generation Computers Year
Present and Beyond
132
Fifth Generation computer is what
a computer would learn from its mistakes and possess the skill of experts
133
the starting point for the fifth generation of computers has been set in the
early 1990
134
the expert system of a fifth generation computer is defined as
a computer information system that attempts to mimic the thought process and reasoning of experts in specific areas
135
three characteristics that can be identified with the fifth generation computer
mega chips, parallel processing, artificial intelligence (AI)
136
What are mega chips
Fifth generation computers will use super
large scale integrated (SLSI) chips, which will result in the production of microprocessor having millions of electronic components on a single chip
137
A computer using parallel processing accesses
several instructions at once and works on them at the same time through use of multiple central processing units.
138
AI comprises of
a group of related technologies expert systems (ES), natural language processing (NLP) speech recognition, vision recognition and robotics
139
Computers currently execute a wide range of tasks, including
complex computations, business report
production, bill generation, teaching,
programming or development, and
entertainment, among others
140
Computer usage and application in society, who benefits?
Business, Science, Government, Health and Medical, Education, Publishing, Weather Forecasting, Research
141
Main parts of analyticial machine
store and mill
142
What is store in analytical machine
Punched card store data, which is equivalent to the memory unit in computers
143
What is mill in analytical machine
Mill weaves or processes the data to give a result, which is equivalent to the central processing unit in computers.
144
What did charles babbage use in the analytical machine
conditional processing of data
145
Who was the first programmer
Ada Lovelace
146
What did Ada Lovelace do
Used programming concept of looping for repetitive actions, and used subroutines in her programs
147
What is the hollerith disk
It consisted of a card reader which sensed the holes in the cards, a gear driven mechanism
which could count and a large wall of dial indicators to display the results of the count.
148
Father of modern computer science
Alan Turing 1936, provided formalisation for the concept of algorithm and computance
149
a secret British computer with limited programmability built using vaccum tubes, was built to break the German wartime codes.
Colossus 1943
150
first computer to read and decipher the codes using cryptography
Colossus 1943
151
Primary programmer of Harvard Mark 1, found first computer 'bug', constructed first compiler
Grace Hopper
152
first high level language
Flow-Matic, developed into COBOL
