Fluency with Information Technology INFO100 and CSE100 Katherine Deibel 2012-04-16Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology1

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 Out

The 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 insight

If 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.

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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 men2012-04-16

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

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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 BINAC2012-04-16


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)

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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 teams2012-04-16

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 nanosecondURL: 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 InstituteDecember 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

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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


Documents

Fluency with Information Technology INFO100 and CSE100 Katherine Deibel 2012-04-16Katherine Deibel, Fluency in Information Technology1