history section 3 Flashcards
incomplete ends right before XEROX Parc
batch-orientated computing
programmer would design their program (as a series of punched cards) and send it to a computer operator, who would run the program at a scheduled time. The output (printed sheets of paper) would be returned to the programmer.
interactive computer
takes inputs as it runs
what was the earliest interactive computer?
Project Whirlwind
why was project whirlwind commissioned?
the U.S air force needed a flight simulator that would prepare trainees for flying any plane. Jay Forrester at MIT was put in charge of this.
why was Forrester’s original plan for WhirlWind not fast enough?
it used an analog design
how did Forrester make Whirlwind faster?
he took after the ENIAC project and used digital circuits
why was funding for Whirlwind almost cut?
Whirlwind turned into a project to just create the faster computer and world war 2 ended, so there wasn’t the same demand for the original flight simulator.
why was the funding for Whirlwind saved?
the U.S learned that their cold war rival, the Soviet Union was in possession of nuclear weapons, so they wanted Whirlwind to continue with a focus on air defense
what were the main parts Whirlwind used?
cathode-ray tube display screen, printer, and core memory
what did IBM rename Whirlwind upon receiving it from MIT?
AN/FSQ-7 computer
what were the AN/FSQ-7 computers used for?
they were the basis of the Air Force’s SAGE (Semi-Automated Ground Environment) air defense system
what did IBM use their experience with SAGE for?
an interactive reservations system for American Airlines to replace manual airline reservations. This system, SABRE (Semi-automatic Business Research Environment) was fully operational by 1964.
timesharing
pioneered by John McCarthy at MIT. connected many keyboard terminals to a central computer, so many people could use the computer at once.
CTSS
a timesharing system that was developed by Fernando Corbato and his team at MIT. ran on a 28-megabyte disk drive. each user was allocated part of the disk where they could store their data.
teletype keyboard
used in the CTSS system. A keyboard and printer in one, the user types and the results are instantly printed on paper without a display screen.
what did the teletype keyboard pioneer?
the “Escape” and “control” keys
BASIC timesharing system
(Beginners’s All-Purpose SYmbolic Instruction Code) created by John Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz, two Dartmouth professors. they wanted to make a programming language for beginners.
how was BASIC ran?
it translated lines of the program into machine code one line at a time, rather than translating the entire program at once. this gave users instant feedback on the correctness of their program.
what company readily adopted BASIC?
General Electric. They saw it as an opportunity to get ahead of IBM - because IBM did not adapt the program.
What was Microsoft’s first product in 1975?
a scaled down version of BASIC for personal computers
Multics
the successor to CTSS. General Electric, MIT, and AT&T Bell Labs worked together to design this system.
what were the creator’s goals for Multics?
to design it so that it could support 300 users at once. unfortunately it took a lot longer than expected and was ultimately disappointing (only supported 25 users)