Social Science Flashcards
In batch oriented computing, the program is…
electronically sent to an operator
Which university produced Project Whirlwind?
Dartmouth
Which branch of the United States military requested Project Whirlwind?
Air Force
Who was the head of Project Whirlwind?
Jay Forrester
Which computer inspired Project Whirlwind?
ENIAC
What developments saved Project Whirlwind from being defunded?
The Soviet Union had developed nuclear weapons capable of landing in North America
Which high level language was used for business
FLOW-MATIC
Fred Brooks participated in the OS/360 project for which company?
IBM
Project Whirlwind did not include…
a mouse
Project Whirlwind became the first…
Interactive Computer
Which language did UNIVAC improve to create FLOW-MATIC
B-0
Which company received the rights to Project Whirlwind
IBM
After its transfer, Project Whirlwind became known as the…
SSEC
What company created the FACT compiler
Honeywell
The United States military spread the SAGE system across how many sites?
43 sites
The SAGE System operated until the early…
1980s
Why did the US government mandate the language COBOL
They wanted customers to be able to switch computer systems easily and be compatible
What company worked to develop the SABRE system?
American Airlines
What state contained the SABRE system?
California
How was programming the EDVAC different from the ENIAC?
A list of instructions could be mapped as individual codes
Who influenced the EDVAC?
John von Neumann
The SABRE system’s data center ran using a pair of IBM…
7090 Computers
What is the function of the plan preparation machine?
Translating programming instructions as codes
What does an assembler turn into numeric code?
Mnemonics
What is a similarity between COBOL and FORTRAN?
Popularity (they were both the most popular coding languages of their time)
Who is MOST commonly associated with popularizing the concept of high-level languages?
Grace Hopper
Grace Hopper was enlisted in which branch of the US military?
Navy
Which best describes Brooks’s law?
An increase in manpower on a software project reduces efficiency
Which company did John Mauchly want Grace Hopper to work?
Eckert-Mauchly Computer
Why was the general acceptance of high-level programming languages limited during the 1940s?
The compilers were slow and inefficient
Where was the first widely used high-level programming language created at?
IBM
Who most influenced the design for COBOL
Grace Hopper
Why did John Backus want to develop FORTRAN?
To generate machine codes efficiently
Which early high-level programming language uses a syntax similar to simple algebra?
FORTRAN
How long did it take for John Backus and his team to finish the FORTRAN computer?
Three years
Why was someone scared of one of Grace Hopper’s FLOW-MATIC versions
She translated everything into French
Which of these languages is no longer popular: Javascript, R, COBOL, Python, or C#
COBOL
Which decade were COBOL and FORTRAN most popular in
1970’s
Which university developed LISP
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
What does LISP stand for
List Processing
Which is the oldest: COMTRAN, FORTRAN, FACT, COBOL, or LlSP
FORTRAN
What research area is associated with LISP
Artificial Intelligence
What type of syntax does LISP use?
Nested
Which processor part in Zuse’s first computer did the vacuum tubers replace?
Telephone Relays
True or false- vacuum tubes use a minimal amount of energy
False
In comparison to vacuum tubes, are transistors smaller or larger?
Transistors are smaller
What is a microchip?
A block of silicon combining multiple transistors.
Which processing part did Eckert and Mauchly use in the ENIAC?
Vacuum Tubes
Who invented the microchip?
Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby
Which processing part was MOST common in commercially sold computers in the late 1950s?
Transistors
When did integrated circuits become the MOST common processing part in commercial computers?
The 1960s
True or false- telephone relays contain moving parts
False
Bell Labs was a subsidiary of which major company?
AT&T (American Telephone and Telegraph Company)
Which processor part resembles a lightbulb in appearance?
Vacuum Tubes
What preceded the invention of vacuum tubes?
The establishment of AT&T.
A combination of multiple transistors is called a(n)
Integrated Circuit
Which of the following processing parts was the largest in size?
Vacuum Tubes
What functions simulated “counting” in vacuum tubes and allowed for arithmetic calculations?
Quick, binary electrical pulses
Which language did an operating system project at the AI Lab at MIT use?
LISP
Which principle did Stallman value MOST in his work?
Openness
Great Britain remained primarily agrarian until the…
Late eighteenth century
Which processes did Richard Stallman follow when creating GNU?
He would rewrite each Unix program with his own code, then delete the original app.
Which event created the need for specialization and automation?
the Enlightenment
Who wrote the wealth of nations?
Adam Smith
Which item is used as an example in The Wealth of Nations to exemplify the efficacy of specialization in labor?
Pins
Which statement BEST describes Brooks’s Law
An increase in manpower on a software project reduces efficiency
Who was the lead engineer for the ENIAC?
J. P. Eckert
What household item do vacuum tubes most represent?
Lightbulbs
About how many vacuum tubes did the ENIAC use?
18,000
What measures did the engineers take to make the ENIAC more reliable?
Operating the vacuum tubes at 10% of their power
Why was the ENIAC faster than other calculators?
It was fully electronic and had no moving parts.
What solidified ENIAC’s status as a computer?
Conditional Branching
How did programmers give the ENIAC instructions?
A system of cables and switches.
To ensure that GNU remained free, Stallman drafted a new license for it called…
the General Public License
How did Gaspard de Prony innovate the task of making books of logarithms?
He broke it down into simple steps
Gaspard de Prony named his process of making logarithmic books…
The method of differences
What operating system did early Handspring Treo models run?
Palm OS
Which essential operating system component was GNU missing?
A Kernel
Which nation had the largest navy during the 19th century?
France
In which country was Linus Torvalds born?
Finland
Navigation tables show the position of what?
stars
What did Blackberry customers refer to there devices as?
Crackberries
Who primarily used navigation tables?
Sea captains
Linus Torvalds built Linux upon?
Minix
Charles Babbage did NOT claim his machine would do what?
Solve more advanced problems
At which university did Andrew Tanenbaum teach?
Vrije University
Which mathematician had the greatest influence on Charles Babbage?
Gaspard de Prony
What is virtualization, in the context of cloud computing?
Running multiple instances of an operating system on a single computer
What benefit does virtualization provide to cloud users?
It gives them dedicated virtual machines
What is the main characteristic of the Software As A Service (SAAS) business model?
Purchasing software licenses
As he worked on his machine, Charles Babbage requested more funds for the production of what?
Gears
What operating system did early Nokia phones use?
Symbian OS
Charles Babbage received MOST of the funds for his machine from who?
The government
For which processor did Linus Torvalds rewrite Andrew Tanenbaum’s operating system?
Intel 80386
When did Charles Babbage produce his machine prototype?
1833
Which company’s monopoly did the United States government break up?
AT&T
What did Silicon Graphics call its version of Unix?
IRIX
To which company did AT&T sell the rights to Unix in 1993?
Novell
What brand used Symbian in their PDAs?
Psion
Who convinced Steve Jobs not to add a dial on the iPhone
Jony Ive
The iPhone separated itself from competitors with its:
Large glass touchscreen
How many iPhones did Apple sell by 2011
90 million
What company acquired Android in 2005
What operating system is Android OS based off of?
Linux
What smartphone manufacturer uses Android OS
Samsung
What company’s phone division did Microsoft purchase
Nokia
When did Microsoft phase out its phones
Between 2016-17
How have app stores most helped small independent developers?
They provide a centralized, easy-to-enter market.
True or false- Adele Finebaum was not on ENIAC’s original programmer team
True
Compared to the ENIAC, the EDVAC’s design was…
Simpler
Who wrote the first draft of a report on the EDVAC?
John von Neumann
Was the EDVAC capable of conditional branching?
No
True or false- the ENIAC weighed 20 tons
False- it weighed 30
When the ENIAC was done, why was it not used?
They no longer needed it, because the war was over.
Where did John Von Neumann create a stored program computer in 1951?
Institute for advanced study.
