Section II: General-Purpose Electronic Computers Flashcards
What are electromechanical computers?
computers that use electricity only to move its parts
What was the problem with artillery guns in 1943?
they needed firing tables
What was taken into account when calculating firing tables?
wind speed/direction, distance, humidity, elevation, and temperature
What does a firing table do?
it tells the gun operator at which angle to shoot the gun
What traditionally created firing tables?
human computers
What machine did the Aberdeen Proving Ground have that helped it calculate firing tables?
a Differential Analyzer
What other university had the U.S. Army enlisted help from because they also had a Differential Analyzer?
UPenn
Who was assigned to supervise the computer team at UPenn?
Dr. Herman Goldstine
When was Goldstine drafted into the Army?
1942
Where and what did Goldstine teach before being drafted?
math at the University of Michigan
Who did Goldstine send to recruit smart people to join the human-computer team at UPenn?
his wife, Adele
Who sent a proposal to UPenn to receive funding for a fully electronic computer in 1942?
John Mauchly
Why did Goldstine’s team at UPenn not want to use the Differential Analyzer?
it broke down too much
Who presented a proposal for an electronic computer at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds?
Goldstine, Mauchly, and Eckert
How many people were initially assigned to the ENIAC project?
12
Who was the lead engineer for the ENIAC?
Eckert
How many vacuum tubes did the ENIAC need?
18,000
Why were vacuum tubes problematic?
they broke down all the time
What did Eckert do to prevent the vacuum tubes on the ENIAC from malfunctioning?
he used the highest quality ones and ran them at only 10% of their voltage
What were the 2 main advantages of the ENIAC over mechanical and electromechanical machines?
it was faster and could perform conditional branching
What is programming?
when a computer is instructed to do a lot of tasks
How would someone program the ENIAC?
they would unplug cables and move them to another plug
How many women were selected as the original programmers of the ENIAC?
6
Who did Eckert and Mauchly enlist for help with the EDVAC?
John von Neumann
Who is John von Neumann?
a famous mathematician who helped design the atomic bomb
In 1945, Neuman summarized their plans for the EDVAC in which document?
First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC
How did the EDVAC do math?
in binary
What did the EDVAC use internally?
decimal
How does the EDVAC’s memory compare to the ENIAC’s?
it was larger
What is the store program concept? (the EDVAC used this)
the concept where data and instructions would be stored in the same memory
What would instructions for the EDVAC be represented as?
systems of binary codes
When was the ENIAC complete?
fall of 1945
How much did the ENIAC weigh when completed?
30 tons
What shape was the ENIAC in?
a U-shape
When was the ENIAC unveiled?
February 1946
Who sponsored the Moore School Lectures?
UPenn
What was the Moore School Lectures?
a school that taught students the principles of electronic computing
After working with the ENIAC team, where did Neumann return to work on his new computer?
Princeton, New Jersey
What was Neumann’s new computer called?
the IAS Computer
When was the IAS Computer completed?
1951
What was special about the IAS Computer?
it used the stored program concept
Who invented the Williams tube?
Frederic Williams
Who made the Manchester Baby?
Max Newman and Frederic Williams
Where was the Manchester Baby built?
England
Why was the machine called the Manchester Baby?
because of its limited functionality
What was the Manchester Baby meant to do?
test the Williams tube and the stored program concept
When was the Manchester Baby completed?
1948
Who made the EDSAC?
Maurice Wilkes
What title did the EDSAC receive?
it was the first practical stored program computer
Why wasn’t the EDVAC the first store program computer?
because it was not completed until later
Why did Eckert and Mauchly leave UPenn?
There were disputes over patent rights
When was the ENIAC patent finalized?
1964
What did the EDSAC use for memory?
a delay line
What element was used in delay lines?
mercury
When did the EDVAC run its first successful program?
1951
Which company offered Mauchly and Eckert jobs after they quit UPenn?
IBM
What was the name of the company Eckert and Mauchly made?
EMCC
What was EMCC’s first product going to be?
the UNIVAC
What type of contract did they use to sell the UNIVAC?
fixed price contracts
What contracts should Eckert and Mauchly have used instead for the UNIVAC?
cost plus development contracts
How much did EMCC sell the UNIVAC for?
270k
How much did the UNIVAC cost to develop?
900k
When EMCC ran out of money to build the UNIVAC, which other computer did they sell?
the BINAC
How much money did they sell the BINAC for?
100k
How much money did the BINAC cost to make?
280k
When was the BINAC completed?
1949
Where was BINAC first sent?
to Northrop
In 1950, which company bought EMCC?
Remington Rand
How many vacuum tubes did the EDVAC use?
5k
Which election did UNIVAC predict correctly?
the 1952 election
Which candidate did UNIVAC correctly predict would win?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Which 3 electronic computers had IBM been secretly developing?
the IBM 701, 702, and 650 models
Name the oldest to newest of the 3 first IBM electronic computers.
the IBM 701, 702, and 650
Which year was the IBM 701 announced?
1952
Why was the IBM 701 similar to the Neumann IAS Computer?
because they hired John von Neumann to help them
The IBM 701 was as powerful as which other computer?
the UNIVAC
What did IBM use for memory storage for the IBM 701?
Williams tubes
How was the IBM 702 different than the 701?
the 702 was marketed toward business data processing and the 701 was marketed toward scientific
Which year was the IBM 702 announced?
1953
Which year was the IBM 650 announced?
1953
What did the IBM 650 use for memory storage?
magnetic drums
Why did IBM sell the 650 model to universities for cheaper?
so they would offer a computer class, which would hopefully produce trained students
How many IBM 650 models were sold in total?
2,000+
Did IBM ever pass UNIVAC in installments?
yes, they did in 1955
Which company did Remington Rand acquire that UNIVAC often fought with?
ERA
In 1955, Remington Rand was acquired by which other company?
Sperry Gyroscope
Sperry Gyroscope and Remington Rand merged to create which company?
Sperry Rand
When was CDC founded?
1957
What did CDC produce?
high-performance computers for scientific purposes
What were the 8 main competitors in the computer industry by the late 50s?
Burroughs, NCR, IBM, Honeywell, Sperry Rand, General Electric, CDC, and RCA
By 1965, what percent of the market share did IBM have?
65%
The computer industry was often referred to as ____ and the seven dwarfs.
IBM
When RCA and General Electric exited the computer industry, what were the remaining competitors referred to as?
BUNCH
What is the CPU considered to be?
the brains of the computer
What does the CPU do?
it does the math and executes instructions
What CPU did the ENIAC use?
vacuum tubes
What does a vacuum tube look like?
a light bulb
What does a vacuum tube do?
it regulates and amplifies the flow of electricity in a circuit
How do vacuum tubes perform math?
the rapid electrical pulses simulated counting, thus performing math
Where was the transistor invented?
Bell Labs
Bell Labs is a subsidiary of which company?
AT&T
Why weren’t transistors used in commercial computers when they were first invented?
they weren’t reliable enough
What is the function of a transistor?
the same as a vacuum tube, amplifying and regulating the electrical current of a circuit
What is another word for integrated circuit?
microchip
Who invented the microchip?
Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby
What semiconductor is primarily used in a microchip?
silicon
What technology replaced vacuum tubes?
transistors
What technology replaced transistors?
microchips
What did the ENIAC use for memory?
vacuum tubes
What did the EDVAC use for memory?
delay lines
Which toxic liquid is used in delay lines?
mercury
What is a delay line?
a long metal column that contains mercury inside
What is a Williams tube similar to?
a cathode-ray tube
Which type of memory involved a metal drum that had heads to read and write data?
magnetic drum memory
What are core memories made of?
thousands of crisscrossing wires that form a lattice
Core memory is an example of what?
random access memory or RAM
Which IBM computers were the first to use core memory?
the 704 and 705 models
Delay lines are what type of memory?
sequential access
What is sequential access memory?
when the values are read in the order they appear
Since the 70s, what have microchips been used for?
memory and processors
What was the ENIAC’s storage?
punched cards
What was the UNIVAC’s storage?
a magnetic tape drive
Which other early computers used magnetic tape drives?
IBM 701 and 702
Why were the IBM magnetic tape drives lighter than the ones used in the UNIVAC?
their’s were made out of plastic
What were the advantages of magnetic tape drives over punched cards?
they were faster, had a larger storage capacity, and could be reused
What is the disadvantage of magnetic tape drives?
they are only machine-readable and they are sequential access
Who first proposed disk storage in the 40s?
Eckert
Which company invented the disk unit?
IBM
What type of access do disks offer?
random access
When was the disk unit invented?
1956
Which company invented the floppy disk?
IBM
Who popularized the concept of high-level coding languages?
Grace Hopper
In 1944, Grace Hopper was assigned to which school to program which computer?
Harvard, the Mark 1
What could the Mark I not perform?
conditional branching
What were the names of the compilers used in the UNIVAC?
A-0 and B-0
What were the bad parts about the UNIVAC’s compilers?
they were very slow and lacked efficiency
Who made the UNIVAC’s compilers?
Grace Hopper
What was the first high-level programming language to receive widespread use?
FORTRAN
Who created FORTRAN?
John Backus
What did Backus realize about the cost of running computers?
75% of it was just paying the programmers
What is FORTRAN short for?
Formula Translator
FORTRAN had a syntax similar to what?
algebra
How long did Backus expect to create FORTRAN?
6 months
How long did it really take to create FORTRAN?
3 years
When was FORTRAN released?
1957
FORTRAN was released for which computer?
the IBM 704
When UNIVAC improved its B-1 compiler, they re-released it as what?
the FLOW-MATIC programming language
When was COBOL standardized by the government?
1960
What was Hopper’s most noticeable impact on COBOL?
the English-like syntax
Why was Hopper thrown out of a UNIVAC executive’s office?
because she wanted to replace English terms in her FLOW-MATIC language with their French equivalents
Most modern programming languages can be traced back to which programming language?
the C language
Which decade was the C language invented
the 70s
Where was the C language invented?
Bell Labs
Where was LISP invented?
MIT
When was LISP invented?
1958
What was unique about LISP’s syntax?
it used lots of parentheses
What is LISP good for?
programming AI and application software
Were the IBM 702 and 705 business or scientific targeted?
business
Were the IBM 701 and 704 business or scientific targeted?
scientific
What is the main difference between scientific and business computers?
floating-point arithmetic
What does floating-point arithmetic do?
it allows computers to represent very large and very small numbers with lots of precision
Which computers were introduced by IBM in 1959?
the 7090 and 7094
What did the IBM 7090, 7094, and 1401 use for memory and processing?
core memory and transistors
What purpose were the IBM 7090 and 7094 intended for?
scientific
What purpose was the IBM 1401 intended for?
business
Why would customers in the 50s and early 60s not want to upgrade their computer?
because you had to rewrite the code for the new computer from scratch
When did IBM announce its System/360 line of computers?
1964
What was unique about the System/360?
it was backward and forward-compatible
What was the speed difference/ratio of the fastest and slowest System/360 model?
25 to 1
How did IBM achieve the System/360’s compatibility?
microprogramming
What was the flagship operating system for the System/360?
OS/360
What is an operating system?
a program that connects all the parts of the computer together, allowing them to work with each other
Who was the manager of the OS/360 project?
Fred Brooks
What did Fred Brooks do with the OS/360 project that he hoped would make it go faster?
he added more people
What was Fred Brooks’s mistake with the OS/360 project?
adding more people
What is Brooks’s Law?
adding more manpower to a late software project makes it later
When did Brooks release the book The Mythical Man-Month?
1975
What was The Mythical Man-Month?
a collection of essays that explains the lessons he learned while working on the OS/360 project
When was the first NATO-sponsored software engineering conference?
1968
When was the first IBM personal computer released?
1981
Which company tried to claim patent rights over all electronic computers?
Sperry Rand
When did the legal battle with Sperry Rand and its competitors end?
1973
Judge Earl Larson declared what about computer patent rights?
computers were in the public domain, anyone could make them without having the pay royalty fees to Sperry Rand
In 1986, Burroughs and Sperry Rand merged to create which company?
Unysis
DEC’s most famous product was which type of computer?
the minicomputer
