History Section 1 Flashcards
What book did Adam Smith write?
The Wealth of Nations (1776)
Who invented the process called “method of differences”?
Gaspard de Prony
What was the Difference Engine made to accomplish?
to mass produce highly accurate naval maps
What happened to Babbage’s engines?
He was caught lacking, so England cut his funding. Difference Engine stayed prototype and Analytical Engine stayed a design on paper
what algorithm did Ada Lovelace invent?
Bernoulli numbers. Since she developed the first hypothetical computer program, she is considered the first computer programmer
What was the clearinghouse?
A place where Banks would gather each day to exchange checks to balance the funds of each bank. First large scale information processing system
what was the telegraph first invented for?
to allow train stations to communicate to try to prevent crashes
What was the first long distance telegraph transmission?
“what hath god wrought” -Morse
what was the Entscheidungsproblem?
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?)
who proposed Entscheidungsproblem?
David Hilbert
what conclusion did Alonzo Church and Alan Turing come to in reference to Entscheidungsproblem?
They determined that proofs cannot be automated
how did the Turing machine function?
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
what three essential characteristics define modern computers?
-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
what were the very first computers?
mathematicians, often women, who would perform a large number or basic calculations
What did Turing do during WWII?
he used turing machines to break german codes from the enigma machine at Bletchly Park
what electromechanical machines helped decrypt german messages in WWII
bombes
what early electronic computer did Turing help design?
the ACE
where do modern computers trace their lineage from?
calculating machines from the US
what example did Adam Smith use?
pins. a bunch of specialized workers independently making seperate parts is cheaper than on skilled person making the whole pin
What made the analytical engine different than the difference engine?
the analytical engine could be programmed to perform any mathematical function
What was part of the reason that the US pushed ahead in automation despite industrializing later?
they did not have as much tradition and and paper records as European countries
On what census did Herman Hollerith work?
the 1890 census
What development did Hollerith bring to the census?
he used punched paper sheets that could be automatically sorted and counted
who invented the QWERTY keryboard in 1869?
Christopher Lantham Sholes
What company introduced new filing cabinet systems to the US?
Remmington Rand.
Who invented the first mechanical calculator that printed its answer?
Dorr E. Felt (1887)
Who invented the cash register?
James Ritty
What company began producing cash registers?
NCR (national cash register company)
From what did CTR descend?
Hollerith’s original punch card company
what did CTR change its name to?
IBM
Who invented the Differential Analyzer?
Vannevar Bush
what was the Differential analyzer made from?
shafts, wires, pulleys, wheels, and 1,000 gears
Who invented vacuum tubes?
Howard Aiken
What computer did Howard Aiken make?
the Harvard Mk 1 (Mk1)
What could the Mark 1 do?
It could solve all mathematical equations, and printed the answer on punched pieces of paper tape. It was noisy
What computer did Clifford Berry and John Atanasoff make?
the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)
Who first used binary in computers and why?
Konrad Zuse, to keep wiring minimal since he didn’t have many resources
what was the name of Konrad Zuse’s computer?
Z1
