cs 185c: the history of computing august 24 class meeting department of computer science san jose...

CS 185C: The History of ComputingAugust 24 Class Meeting

Department of Computer ScienceSan Jose State University

Fall 2011Instructor: Ron Mak

www.cs.sjsu.edu/~mak

SJSU Dept. of Computer ScienceFall 2011: August 24

CS 185C: This History of Computing© R. Mak

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Goals of the Course

Work on projects relating to computing history. 1- or 2-student project teams. Work with computing pioneers and industry luminaries. Learn from the past in order to improve on

the present and the future.

Attend talks by famous computer scientists. Be inspired by their experiences.

Publish on the IEEE Global History Network website. Expose your research to worldwide experts

for advice and guidance. Link to your IEEE project report from your resumes.



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Course Notes

Class website http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/~mak/CS185C/ Green sheet Lecture notes and handouts

Required textbook:A History of Modern Computing, 2nd edition Provides good historical context. Guest lectures will not be in chronological order.

Recommended textbook:Writing History: A Guide for Students, 3rd edition



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Procedures

Most of the guest lectures in the Engineering Auditorium ENGR 189 will be on Wednesdays. Turn in a short essay (3-4 paragraphs, at most 1 page)

discussing your personal opinions of the talk What did you think of the speaker? What insights did you get from the talk? How can you apply what you learned in your work today? etc.

Mondays in class Discuss the speakers and their topics. Oral status reports of your projects.

Participating in class and attending the talks are critical!



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Projects

Each team works throughout the semester on a project related to computing history. Project depends on students’ interest (with instructor consent).

Select and connect with suitable advisors.

Research primary (original) sources. Interview the original designers and developers. Read books, articles, and websites written by the original

designers and developers. Research historic artifacts in the archives of the

Computer History Museum. etc.

Reference secondary sources. Books, articles, websites, etc.



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Some Project Ideas Restore a historic hardware or software artifact. Create a software simulation of a legendary computer

architecture. Study the evolution of a specific hardware or software

technology, including key decision points, controversies, politics, etc.

Chronicle the early history and legacy of a pioneering computing company or organization such as Control Data Corporation, Burroughs Corporation, Wang Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corporation, Zilog, Xerox PARC, and others.

Investigate past programming languages and demonstrate their influences on today's languages and programming paradigms.



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More Project Ideas

Trace the advancement of business or scientific data processing applications over the decades as application requirements and computing technologies evolved.

Study the impact of computing on society from the punched-card culture to the Web and social networking.

Collect, analyze, categorize, and index original software, documentation, and other artifacts related to a particular technology.

Interview industry pioneers and videotape and record their oral histories.

... etc.



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Publish on the IEEE Website

Each project team posts to the IEEE Global History Network website. http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Special:Home Each student will get an account

Edit only your project’s wiki Read everybody else’s wiki

Post drafts, blogs, final reports, etc. Get early exposure to experts worldwide

Receive comments, criticisms, advice, research guidance

You will be able to link to your project report. Add to your list of published works. The IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers)

is a well-known and highly respected professional organization with over 400,000 members worldwide in over 160 countries.



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Writing Center

San Jose State University Writing Center http://www.sjsu.edu/writingcenter/ One-on-one tutoring sessions

to improve your writing.

Highly recommended if you’re unsure about the quality of your writing. Whatever you post to the IEEE website

will be seen worldwide!_



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Individual Student’s Overall Class Grade

33% attend talks, write weekly essays [individual] 33% quality of your research [team] 34% quality of your final deliverable [team]

Quality of your research What were your primary and secondary resources? Whom did you interview? What questions did you ask? How well did you solicit and respond to criticism and advice? etc.

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Final individual class letter grade will be based on the class curve.



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TAKE ROLL!



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Unofficial Field Trip

Computer History Museum in Mt. View http://www.computerhistory.org/

Saturday, August 27 at 10:30

Experience a fully restored IBM 1401 mainframe computer system from the early 1960s in operation. General info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1401 Restoration:

http://ed-thelen.org/1401Project/1401RestorationPage.html

See a life-size working model of Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine in operation, a hand-cranked mechanical computer designed in the early 1800s.



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Unofficial Field Trip, cont’d IBM 1401 computer system, fully restored and operational

A small transistor-based mainframe computer. Extremely popular with small businesses in the late 1950s

through the mid 1960s Maximum of 16K bytes of memory. 800 card/minute card reader (wire brushes). 600 line/minute line printer (impact). 6 magnetic tape drives, no disk drives.



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Unofficial Field Trip, cont’d

Babbage Difference Engine, fully operational Hand-cranked mechanical

computer. Computed polynomial

functions. Designed by Charles

Babbage in the early to mid 1800s. Arguably the world’s first

computer scientist, lived 1791-1871.

He wasn’t able to build it because he lost his funding.

His plans survived and this working model was built. Includes a working printer!

http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/



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The new Revolution exhibit is now open! Walk through a timeline of the

First 2000 Years of Computing History. Historic computer systems, data processing equipment,

and other artifacts. Small theatre presentations.

Atanasoff-Berry Computer

HollerithCensus

Machine



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Study the exhibits.Think of project ideas.



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What was the IBM 1401?

A “small scale” computer system developed by IBM in the late 1950s.

1401 CPU1402 Card Read Punch 1403 Line Printer729 Tape Drive1407 Console



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What was Computing Like Before the 1401?

Business data processing involved applications that manipulated data records:

Inventory Billing and receivables Payroll



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Data was stored in punched cards called “IBM cards” or “Hollerith cards”

Named after Herman Hollerith.

80 columns per card, one character per column.

Up to 12 punched holes per column.

Alphanumeric data, often grouped into fields.



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Punched Cards Punched cards used

the Hollerith code.

Rows 0-9 were numeric punches

The topmost row was row 12 and the second row was 11.

Rows 12, 11, and 0 were zone punches.

Examples:Char Punch

3 3

A 12-1

M 11-4

S 0-2

$ 11-3-8



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A data processing application involved passing decks of punched cards through electromechanical “unit record” machines.

Repetitive sort, calculate, collate, and tabulate operations ... ... were programmed with hand-wired

plugboard control panels.



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Plugboard Control Panel

IBM 407 Accounting Machine (1949)



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Plugboard Control Panel



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Programming a Plugboard

“Hmm, should I pass this parameter by value or by reference?”

“Programming” was hand-wiring plugboards.



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Programming a Plugboard

Plugboard wiring diagram

It doesn’t look too complicated, does it?



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Data Processing

Data processing was all about punched cards.

My school compiler project: 3½ boxes of punched cards Each box = 2000 cards, 10 lbs.



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Data Processing



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Data Processing

Cards were punched manually at a keypunch machine.

Or they were punched automatically by unit-record equipment under program control.



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Data Processing

Cards were re-keyed on a verifier to ensure accuracy. Good cards

were notched at the top right edge.

Bad cards were notched at the top edge above each erroneous column.



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Data Processing

A sorter sorted cards one column at a time. You had to run

decks of cards multiple times through a sorter.

Accounting machines performed arithmetic on card fields and printed reports.



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Data Processing

Reproducers made copies of card decks.

Tabulators were accounting machines: simple arithmetic plus printing.

Interpreters read cards and printed information on the cards.



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Data Processing

Gang punching: Automatically punch multiple cards from the contents of a single card.



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Data Processing

A collator compared and merged decks of punched cards.



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Running a Data Processing Application ...

... meant passing decks of cards through a sequence of unit-record machines.

Each machine was programmed via its plugboard to perform its task for the application.

Each machine had little or no memory.

The punched cards stored the data records

The data records moved as the cards moved.

An entire work culture evolved around punched cards!



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How did the IBM 1401 change all that?



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IBM 1401 Innovations

One of IBM’s first all-transistor computers. Earlier machines used vacuum tubes.

Used magnetic core memory instead of a plugboard.

A new instruction set.

An inexpensive stored-program computer.

cs 185c: the history of computing august 24 class meeting department of computer science san jose...

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