Social Science Section 2 Flashcards
Where were most of the Firing Tables created?
Ballistics Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland
When did Dr. Herman Goldstine get drafted into the Military
1942
What did soldiers have to refer to when shooting Artillery guns?
Firing Tables
What problem did the military have regarding firing tables?
They didn’t have enough computers to make all the firing tables
What was Dr. Goldstine hired to do?
Supervise the computer team and compute the firing tables quicker by any means possible
How did Goldstine get his wife to help?
He sent his wife out to hire students with the mathematical ability to join the computer squad
Who was John Mauchly?
An instructor in the University of Pennsylvania who had an idea to make a fully electric calculator
What would a soldier have to consider when firing an artillery gun correctly?
Distances from the target, wind speed and direction, humidity, elevation, and temperature.
Where were the firing tables primarily created at?
At the Ballistics Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Aberdeen, Maryland.
Who was Max Newman
A professor of mathematics at Manchester University he sought to construct an EDVAC like computer
What did Max Newman believe was the important technical problem of a EDVAC like computer
Creating a reliable memory system
Who did Max Newman recruit
Fredrick Williams
What did Fredrick Williams design
Designed a new type of storage for a computer
What was the new type of memory storage of a computer called
It was a type of a cathode-ray tube which he named” Williams tube”
What time was the EDVAC completed in?
May 6, 1949
When was the first UNIVAC completed ?
March 1951
Which university had a contractual obligation to the EDVAC
University of Pennsylvania
Who did IBM offer a job to
Eckert and Mauchly
what 2 companies purchased Electrodata and Computer Research Corporations?
Burroughs purchased Electrodata and NCR purchased Computer Research Corporations because they couldn’t come up with new computer designs of their own so they brought smaller companies that had designs, and used their sell forces to earn profits
what company was founded in 1957 by a group of former Sperry Rand employees?
Control Data Corporation (CDC).
what did CDC specialize in?
They specializes in high-performance computers for scientific applications
in 1965 IBM owned 65% of the market shares what 7 other companies owned shares in this market?
Sperry Rand, Burroughs, NCR, RCA, Honeywell, General Electric and CDC
what fairy tale reference did the press use to refer to IBM and its 7 other competitors?
“IBM and the 7 dwarfs”
in the late 1960s RCA and General Electric sold their companies to who?
Sperry Rand and Honeywell
after the sale of RCA and General Electric, what was the new catch Acronym for the Computer businesses?
IBM’s competitors “BRUNCH” standing for Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR, CDC, and Honeywell
What did Transenders replace in computers?
vacuum tubes
why was Transistors a better option from Vacuum tubes
because they were smaller, more durable, and required way less power
what is another word for Integrated Circuit?
also known as a MIcrochip
who invented the Microchip?
in 1950 it was independently invented by Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby
what was a Microchip made out of?
was primarily a large block of silicone, leading to it being really compact
What university assembled its own team of human computers to compute firing tables?
University of Pennsylvania. They had Differential Analyzer
What subject did Goldstine teach at the University of Michigan before being drafted into the army in 1942?
Mathematics
What was a problem the computer team for firing tables faced with the Differential Analyzer?
It broke down too often to be of much help.
In what year did John Mauchly submitted a proposal to the administration off the University of Pennsylvania, requesting funding to build a high-speed electronic calculator?
August, 1942
Why was Mauchly’s proposal ignored by the university administration?
They taught his ideas were too outlandish to consider.
When did Goldstine, Mauchly, and Eckert presented their proposal to the directors of Aberdeen?
April 9, 1943
What name did Mauchly and Eckert originally wanted to call the ENIAC?
Electronic Numerical Integrator (ENI)
Who suggested the acronym ENIAC?
The army suggested the catchier acronym ENIAC.
How many people were initially appointed to engineer the specific pieces of the ENIAC?
Twelve people were initially assigned to the project.
Who was designated lead engineer for the ENIAC?
Eckert
What is a vacuum tube?
An electrical component that resembles a lightbulb, but which regulates or amplify electric charge; used extensively in early electronic computers, before being replaced by the transistor. It has two states: on or off.
What was the downside of vacuum tubes?
Vacuum tubes were notorious for breaking down
How many vacuum tubes did the ENIAC required?
18,000
True or False. A failure in any of the vacuum tubes could cause the ENIAC to malfunction.
True
What made the ENIAC an electronic computer?
The ENIAC had the ability to perform conditional branching.
What is programing?
The means by which a computer can be instructed to perform a wide varity of tasks.
What are today’s programs written with?
High-level programming language such as Python or Java.
What key innovation set the EDVAC apart from its predecessor (the ENIAC)?
- First, the EDVAC would have a much larger memory and would store numbers and perform arithmetic in binary. (The ENIAC used decimal internally, not binary.)
- Second, the EDVAC would store both the program’s data and instructions in the same memory. This concept would eventually be known as “the stored program concept.”
- Third, instructions for the computer would be represented as a system of binary codes. Each instruction would consist of a single operation code, optionally followed by one or more
In the 1950s’, what was the assumption regarding the invention of computers depending as to their customer?
“Business” and “scientific” customers needed different type of computers that’d fit their needs
It was believed that scientists did what type of math?
Complex mathematics on small data sets
It was believed that business people did what type of math?
Simple math on larger data sets
FORTRAN and COBOL (dominant programming languages) were targeted for business or science?
FORTRAN– science, COBOL– business
IBM 701 and 704 were intended for…?
Scientists
IBM 702 and 705 were intended for…?
Businesses
What type of machinery did the IBM 704 and 705 used that made them faster and more reliable that IBM 701 and 702 that used Williams tube?
Core memory
What does floating-point arithmetic allow computers to represent?
Both large and small numbers with a high degree of precision (down to the smallest decimal)
What science-oriented IBM machine had dedicated hardware to perform floating point arithmetic?
IBM 704; could perform really fast calculations
True or False? Machines, such as the IBM 705, could still perform floating-point arithmetic without the hardware dedicated to it (i.e. in the IBM 704)?
True, they were just slower
Why did the IBM machines dedicated to businessmen not include hardware that was dedicated to the floating-point arithmetic?
It was assumed that business users did not the added precision
True or False? The IBM System/360 was only met for science uses?
False; it was meant for business and science uses as the decreasing cost in hardware and the complexity of marketing different machines to a variety of customers led IBM to unify its platforms
What two IBM machines were introduced in 1959 that used core memory and transistors for scientific use?
7090 and 7094
What IBM machines was introduced in 1960, and similar to the IBM 7090 and 7094, used core memory and transistors but was intended for business use?
1401
What made software increasingly expensive to maintain and why it was not very common?
Because customers could not switch IBM machines without having to scrap their existing application/program as the program of one computer would not work for another
What was IBM’s solution to the incompatibility of their machines?
To make a “family” of compatible computers with different price points
The name “360” of System/360 comes from…?
the number of degrees in a circle, implying this model spanned the “full circle” of a customers needs
IBM initially announced how many models of System/360 in April 1964?
6
What was the speed difference from the fastest model of System/360 to the slowest?
25:1
How is the “family” of IBM System/360 similar to modern day phones or computers?
We are able to transfer data saved on one device to another without recompilation
True or False? Microprogamming is necessary for the System/360?
True as it created a single unified instruction set for each platform in which the fastest models would run the program natively and slower models had a microprogram that’d provide slower implementations of the instruction
What was a consequence of microprogramming?
Allowed the System/360 to emulate other types of computers, meaning some people could run their old IBM 1401 on the System/360 machines for it to be 10 times faster
What is an operating system?
a program that coordinates all parts of the computer– memory, processor, disk/tape drives, card readers, printers, application software– to allow them to work together
True or False? Was multiprogramming (multitasking) used in the OS/360.
True as it allowed for multiple programs to be ran at the same time
What was a major flaw in the System/360?
Its operating system (OS/360) as it was very complex
Who was the manager of the OS/360?
Fred Brooks
Why was the OS/360 released in 1967, a year behind schedule?
Because of its complexity despite there being 1000 people working on it at some point. Four smaller operating machines were released from 1965 to 1967 as a stop gap measure
Who published The Mythical Man-Month?
Fred Brooks
What was The Mythical Man-Mouth about?
the lessons Brook’s learned from working on the OS/360 project as a collection of essays
What is Brook’s Law?
Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later
What is the meaning of Brook’s Law?
since programming requires primarily mental, not physical effort: With there being more people, the original programmers must explain how to do it and answer questions from the extra man, therefore, more time is spent talking/explaining than actually focusing on the “real” work
What is software engineering?
the practice of writing software using standardized processes, based on engineering
principles; well-engineered software is typically easier to maintain over time and has fewer bugs.
The issues of the OS/360 team motivated what industry-wide movement?
Beginning with the first NATO-sponsored software conference in 1968
Drawbacks to the success of the IBM System/360
As IBM was so focused on maintaining/improving System 360, it was slow to embrace other inventions such as the personal computer in the 1970s’
When was Eckert and Mauchly’s original patent published?
1964, since it was a long time, ENIAC had already been supplanted by new machines
Who was the current corporate owner of the ENIAC patent?
Sperry Rand
What did Sperry Rand claim?
the patent covered all electronic computers in general and, therefore, he demanded royalty payments from other computer manufacturers
What did Judge Earl Larson decide regarding the case with Sperry Rand?
Striked down the ENIAC patent and said the invention of the computer was in the public domain. Anyone was free to create and sell computers without having to pay royalty fees.
NCR still manufactures what?
cash registers
Is CDC still around?
No
True or False? Honeywell still makes computers
False
The minicomputer was the product of what corporation?
Digital Equipment Corporation
What happened to Burrough and Sperry in 1986?
they merged to form Unisys (reminiscent of the old UNIVAC)
What is a minicomputer?
a class of computer that is smaller and less expensive than a mainframe; the most prominent
examples were the PDP-8 and PDP-11 machines by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC).
How did codes get loaded into the EDVAC?
by paper tape or punched cards
Who designed the plan preparation machine?
Konrad Zuse
Who determined that any general-purpose computer could be programmed to do almost anything?
Heinz Rutishauser
What did Rutishauser say about plan preparation machine?
“Use the computer as its own Plan Preparation Machine.”
What language used simple mnemonic instructions?
assembly language
What are the mnemonic instructions translated into?
numeric codes
What allowed programmers to to write their programs using a mixture of math and English,
programming language
When was Grace Hopper assigned by the US navy to go to Harvard?
1944
What did Grace Hopper do at Harvard?
She realized that if the computer could be configured to automatically run the same sequence of instructions multiple times, it would greatly simplify the task of programming.
Who convinced Hopper to go work at Eckert-Mauchly Computer
Corporation?
John Mauchly
what was the first widespread high level programming language?
FORTRAN
True or False FORTRAN was first used by UNIVAC?
False, it was IBM
Who made the realization that as much as 75 percent of the overall cost of running a computer was in paying the programmers to write, test, and debug their programs.
John Backus
True or false FORTRAN was developed by John Backus/
True
How long did Backus’s team take to develop FORTRAN?
3 years
what had other companies failed at till 1956 when they shifted their focus from ______?
what had other companies failed at till 1956 when they shifted their focus from ______?
vacuum tubes are the_______ of the CPU.
brains
what dose CPU stand for?
Central processing unit
what type of CPU did ENIAC use?
vacuum tubes
what company did bell labs transform into?
AT&T
