History Section 1

Question 1

What book did Adam Smith write?

Answer 1

The Wealth of Nations (1776)

Question 2

Who invented the process called “method of differences”?

Answer 2

Gaspard de Prony

Question 3

What was the Difference Engine made to accomplish?

Answer 3

to mass produce highly accurate naval maps

Question 4

What happened to Babbage’s engines?

Answer 4

He was caught lacking, so England cut his funding. Difference Engine stayed prototype and Analytical Engine stayed a design on paper

Question 5

what algorithm did Ada Lovelace invent?

Answer 5

Bernoulli numbers. Since she developed the first hypothetical computer program, she is considered the first computer programmer

Question 6

What was the clearinghouse?

Answer 6

A place where Banks would gather each day to exchange checks to balance the funds of each bank. First large scale information processing system

Question 7

what was the telegraph first invented for?

Answer 7

to allow train stations to communicate to try to prevent crashes

Question 8

What was the first long distance telegraph transmission?

Answer 8

“what hath god wrought” -Morse

Question 9

what was the Entscheidungsproblem?

Answer 9

asks if it’s possible to create an algorithm that can prove any logical statement true or false (is there an algorithmic solution to literally every problem?)

Question 10

who proposed Entscheidungsproblem?

Answer 10

David Hilbert

Question 11

what conclusion did Alonzo Church and Alan Turing come to in reference to Entscheidungsproblem?

Answer 11

They determined that proofs cannot be automated

Question 12

how did the Turing machine function?

Answer 12

a series of tapes are advanced and rewound through a machine that can read and write a character in each square of the tape. A tape fed into the machine would be read and processed, then it would edit another tape according to its programing and stop when finished

Question 13

what three essential characteristics define modern computers?

Answer 13

-Memory that can be read from and written to
-Programmability, can run different algorithms or instructions
-Conditional Branching, ability to make decisions and run different instructions based on decisions

Question 14

what were the very first computers?

Answer 14

mathematicians, often women, who would perform a large number or basic calculations

Question 15

What did Turing do during WWII?

Answer 15

he used turing machines to break german codes from the enigma machine at Bletchly Park

Question 16

what electromechanical machines helped decrypt german messages in WWII

Answer 16

bombes

Question 17

what early electronic computer did Turing help design?

Answer 17

the ACE

Question 18

where do modern computers trace their lineage from?

Answer 18

calculating machines from the US

Question 19

what example did Adam Smith use?

Answer 19

pins. a bunch of specialized workers independently making seperate parts is cheaper than on skilled person making the whole pin

Question 20

What made the analytical engine different than the difference engine?

Answer 20

the analytical engine could be programmed to perform any mathematical function

Question 21

What was part of the reason that the US pushed ahead in automation despite industrializing later?

Answer 21

they did not have as much tradition and and paper records as European countries

Question 22

On what census did Herman Hollerith work?

Answer 22

the 1890 census

Question 23

What development did Hollerith bring to the census?

Answer 23

he used punched paper sheets that could be automatically sorted and counted

Question 24

who invented the QWERTY keryboard in 1869?

Answer 24

Christopher Lantham Sholes

Question 25

What company introduced new filing cabinet systems to the US?

Answer 25

Remmington Rand.

Question 26

Who invented the first mechanical calculator that printed its answer?

Answer 26

Dorr E. Felt (1887)

Question 27

Who invented the cash register?

Answer 27

James Ritty

Question 28

What company began producing cash registers?

Answer 28

NCR (national cash register company)

Question 29

From what did CTR descend?

Answer 29

Hollerith’s original punch card company

Question 30

what did CTR change its name to?

Answer 30

IBM

Question 31

Who invented the Differential Analyzer?

Answer 31

Vannevar Bush

Question 32

what was the Differential analyzer made from?

Answer 32

shafts, wires, pulleys, wheels, and 1,000 gears

Question 33

Who invented vacuum tubes?

Answer 33

Howard Aiken

Question 34

What computer did Howard Aiken make?

Answer 34

the Harvard Mk 1 (Mk1)

Question 35

What could the Mark 1 do?

Answer 35

It could solve all mathematical equations, and printed the answer on punched pieces of paper tape. It was noisy

Question 36

What computer did Clifford Berry and John Atanasoff make?

Answer 36

the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

Question 37

Who first used binary in computers and why?

Answer 37

Konrad Zuse, to keep wiring minimal since he didn’t have many resources

Question 38

what was the name of Konrad Zuse’s computer?

Answer 38

Z1