Computing

Introduction

This is a first course in Computer Science meant as an introduction for beginners. Apart from leading the participants through a whirlwind history of computing, the course also develops a feel for web programming through a series of lectures that help the students develop their own web pages.

Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

· Creator of the Analytical Engine - the first general-purpose digital computer (1833)

· The Analytical Engine was not built until 1943 (in the form of the Harvard Mark I)

The Analytical Engine

· A programmable, mechanical, digital machine

· Could carryout any calculation

· Could make decisions based upon the results of the previous calculation

· Components: input; memory; processor; output

Ada, Countess of Lovelace(1815-52)

· Babbage: the father of computing

· Ada: the mother?

· Wrote a program for computing the Bernoulli’s sequence on the Analytical Engine - world’s 1st computer program

· Ada: A programming language specifically designed by the US Dept of Defense for developing military applications was named Ada to honor her contributions towards computing

A lesson that we all can learn from Babbage’s Life

· Charles Babbage had huge difficulties raising money to fund his research

· As a last resort, he designed a clever mathematical scheme along with Ada, the Countess of Lovelace

· It was designed to increase their odds while gambling. They bet money on horse races to raise enough money to support their research experiments

· Guess what happened at the end? The lost every penny that they had.

1. Fast
2. Bored
3. Storage

Here is a fact:

In 1997 Deep Blue, a supercomputer designed by IBM, beat Gary Kasparov, the World Chess Champion
That computer was exceptionally fast, did not get tired or bored. It just kept on analyzing the situation and kept on searching until it found the perfect move from its list of possible moves …