A Clip Show of Computing History 50 minutes of nerds at their best

A Clip Show of Computing History50 minutes of nerds at their best

Fluency with Information Technology

INFO100 and CSE100

Katherine Deibel

2012-04-16 Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology 1

Why History? Computing and IT are two of the

youngest fields in STEM Many of our founders are still alive or

recently passed on I've personally conversed with at least

three Turing award winners (basically the Nobel prize in computing)

Still, the history goes back farther than you may think


What is a computer? Several definitions for first computers

Computation tool: abacus Mechanical: astrolabe and Antikythera mechanism Programmable: Babbage Analytical Engine First binary computer: Zuse Z3 First electronic general purpose: ENIAC First commercial computer: Ferranti Mark 1 First single chip microprocessor: Intel 4004


Abacus One of our earliest computation tools

Predecessor was the stick/tablet with crossed out counting marks

Arrangement of strings and stones allowed for development of fast counting methods (algorithms) Also introduced roundoff error


Clip: Abacus Speed Source:

Documentary: The Story of Onewith Terry Jones (Monty Python fame)

Setting:A mathematician challenges an modern abacus user

Play info: (start at 46:00) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umyhZu6gXmQ


Antikythera mechanism Early 1st century BCE Greek

mechanical computer Calculates position of Sun,

Moon, and several planets on different dates

Such mechanisms not seen again until the 14th century


Computer Hardware History Been around a lot longer than one

normally would guess Historical movement from gears to

vacuum tubes to transistors to integrated circuits

But what about the software


Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King,

Countess of Lovelace Daughter of Lord Byron

Translated and extended Menabrea’s article on Babbage’s Analytical Engine

Predicted computers could be used for music and graphics

Wrote the first algorithm— how to compute Bernoulli numbers

Developed notions of looping and subroutines


Garbage In, Garbage OutThe Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths.

— Ada Lovelace, Note G


On her genius and insightIf you are as fastidious about the acts of your friendship as you are about those of your pen, I much fear I shall equally lose your friendship and your Notes. I am very reluctant to return your admirable & philosophic 'Note A.' Pray do not alter it… All this was impossible for you to know by intuition and the more I read your notes the more surprised I am at them and regret not having earlier explored so rich a vein of the noblest metal.

— Charles Babbage


Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology 11

Science and Victorian Ladies Some journals accepted and

supported science papers from women authors.

Periodical like the Edinburgh Review and Ladies Diary also provided opportunities for publishing amateur scholarly works.

2012-04-16



Human Computers Manual calculation of differential equations

for generating tables to be used in the field Supported through use of mechanical calculators A few specialized in the use of single-purpose

hardware (e.g., differential analyzer) Women more prominent as computers

Alternative to a career teaching mathematics Large pool of potential employees (both college

and high school graduates) Cheaper than hiring men

2012-04-16

The Women of ENIAC Six “computers” hired to be the first

programmers for the ENIAC project (1945)

Women comprised a large percentage of later programmers for ENIAC, including Homé McAllister, Willa Wyatt Sigmund, and Marie

Bierstein


Working on the ENIAC Learned the system through its blueprints and

conversations with its designers Worked in pairs on subprojects:

Calculating and testing test trajectories: Marlyn Meltzer and Ruth Teitelbaum Developing and streamlining the programs: Frances Spence and Kathleen Antonelli Coordinating the Master Programmer unit: Jean Bartik and Betty Holberton

Only group to program ENIAC at the machine level



After ENIAC Ruth Teitelbaum

Stayed with ENIAC project the longest Trained second generation of ENIAC programmers

Jean Bartik Conversion of ENIAC to a stored-program computer Worked on BINAC and UNIVAC I

Kathleen Antonelli Married John Mauchly (1948) Software design for the BINAC and UNIVAC I

Betty Holberton Suggest grey as the color for UNIVAC I Developed C-10 mnemonic instruction set for BINAC

2012-04-16


Dustbin of history? For 50 years, their involvement was

mostly forgotten and ignored: Hardware more the focus than the software Names misspelled in official Army history Some programmers married ENIAC engineers

Programmers originally not invited to 50th anniversary of ENIAC

All six programmers inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame (1997)

2012-04-16

Why the focus on women? Yes, there were plenty of men who

also worked in computing We will cover them more in other chapters

This is a clip show of interesting points in computing and IT history


Philadelphia Inquirer, "Your Neighbors" article, 8/13/1957

An Amazing Photo



Grace Hopper (1 of 3) Education

Vasser: B.S. in Mathematics and Physics

Yale: M.S. and Ph.D. in Mathematics

Naval Career Joined Naval Reserves (1943) Assigned to work with Howard Aiken

Harvard First person to write a program for the Mark I

(arctangent calculations) Member of the Mark II and III development teams

2012-04-16

The Infamous Bug

While working on the Mark II, Hopper discovered a moth stuck in a relay.

Originated the term “debugging”


Grace Hopper (2 of 3) UNIVAC

Invented concept of compiler: ARITH-MATIC, MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC

COBOL was partially an extensionof FLOW-MATIC

Standards Advocated and pioneered development of

standards for testing computer systems and languages.


Grace Hopper (3 of 3) Naval Career

Retired three times 1983 Special Presidential

promotion to Rear Admiral Defense Distinguished

Service Medal recipient (1986) Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)

Senior Consultant and Goodwill Ambassador (1986 – 1992)


Nanoseconds

To demonstrate the cost of computing time, Hopper would hand out pieces of wire.

Distance electrons travel: 1 nanosecond ≈ 12 inches 1 microsecond ≈ 1000 feet 1 millisecond ≈ 189 miles 1 second ≈ 189,000

miles


Clip: Hopper and Nanosecond Grace Hopper explains the nanosecond

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eyFDBPk4Yw

She also appeared on Letterman!URL:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0g5_NgRao


Let's Jump Ahead Until the late 1960s, the general view

of computers was the mainframe The idea of a personal computer on

one's desktop was an alien idea Then came the Mother of All Demos


Douglas Engelbart Early pioneer of Human-

Computer Interaction Developed computer mouse Set foundation for Hypertext Established use of GUIs

Main credo: Use computers to connect and support human thought and capability


Mother of All Demos Stanford Research Institute

December 9, 1968 Live demonstration of a GUI

workstation that shows Computer mouse Video conferencing File sharing Word processing



Clip: The Demo URL:

http://sloan.stanford.edu/MouseSite/1968Demo.html

Clips:2. Introduces workstation3. Word processor12. Mouse and keyboard

2012-04-16

Our Final Clip I expect to hear some groans…


The Office Assistant Animated help tool in

Microsoft Office 97-2003 Despised by the public


Microsoft Word Feature Glut Word had many many features

Letter wizard Cross-referencing Etc.

Difficult for users to discover and learn the features that could best help them


Original Idea: Lumiere Bayesian model (AI technique) Agent tracks user’s goals Offer advice when user appears stuck Taper off advice as user stops showing

interest in new features Prevent frustrating the user Accepts that every user may not want to

become a complete power user of Word


It worked but… Lumiere’s software took up a large

percentage of the Office memory and storage space requirements

Caused Office to run a bit slowly


Marketing’s Lobotomy Lumiere’s intelligence was stripped

They kept the task detection software Removed the code for tracking the

learner’s progress and avoiding annoyance Result:

Unhappy customers Clippy removed from Office 2007


Impact on Intelligent Agents Negative opinion of intelligent helper

agents like Clippy Furthered by automated hotlines with

poor speech recognition Lumiere as it was would run fine on

computers today It won’t be implemented into future Office

versions Consumer response would be negative


Perhaps the Tide is Turning Clippy was over 4+ years ago New smart agents are around Apple iPhone’s Siri

Very popular Not animated but is treated as a person

Siri-type clones likely to become more plentiful in the near future


Summary I hope you enjoyed a few clips from

the history of IT and computing We'll touch on many more throughout

the rest of the term Starvation and theoretical physicists Laziness and integrated circuits


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A Clip Show of Computing History 50 minutes of nerds at their best

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