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Two components today:
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Introduction
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Some discussion of computing history
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Further material scheduled for Wednesday?
About me
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Nathan Russell (nrussell@buffalo.edu)
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Taught CSE111 last summer
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This isn't last summer!
Finishing up a Ph.D. here at UB.
What are great ideas in computer science?
CSE111 Lecture 1
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Administrative information and Syllabus
Distribution
Break/Lunch (Leave lecture early? Half hour
break during?)
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Grade breakdown
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Academic honesty policy.
Introduction
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Office hours listed in syllabus
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Official website as listed in the syllabus:
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http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~nrussell/cse111/
Office location not yet known; for today, I will be
available immediately after lab
Administrative information
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This is a “when”, not an “if”!
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You can't listen for 4 hours, and I can't
effectively lecture either
My *suggestion* is a 10-15 minute break during
lecture, and leaving early
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Final exam day will be an exception, but the
final shouldn't take 3 hours.
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http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~nrussell/cse111/
The lab room will be locked until I finish lunch :(
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This represents a change from last summer.
Pacing, breaks and lunch
We do need a lunch, so:
Leave lecture early? Half hour break during?
Pacing, breaks, etc
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Homework (generally given in lab) 10%
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Quizzes 20%
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There will be approximately 3 quizzes
Programming projects 20%
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2 or 3 projects
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Test 1 (Monday, July 16): 20%
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Test 2 (Wednesday, August 1): 30%
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Test 2 will be cumulative, but emphasize
material covered since Test 1.
Grade breakdown
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This is big.
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Do not plaigerize.
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You may discuss solutions with your friends
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Everyone must do their own work, and
students should not look on one another's'
screens.
CSE department policy states that academic
dishonesty is punished, minimally, by failing the
course.
Academic honesty policy
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Lots to talk about, we'll see how much we get
through today.
Feel free to ask questions. If something's
unclear to you, it very probably is to other
students, and this is how I improve as a
teacher.
Lectures adapted from slides by Profs. Kris
Schindler and Helene Kershner
History of computing
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“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and
stupid: humans are incredibly slow, inaccurate
and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond
imagination.” - Albert Einstein
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What does this mean?
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What are humans better at?
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What school subjects, for example?
What are computers better at?
Computers vs. humans
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The Personal Computer
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Desktop
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Laptop
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Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
Supercomputer
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Cray® 20-XMPTM
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CCR
Embedded Computer
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Cell Phones
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Automotive Industry
The Computer
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RFID tags
Mobile phones (a phone can do everything
computers used to do)
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Smart pills
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Laser eye surgery
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Weather forecast
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MP3 player
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Microwave oven
Where else do we see
computers?
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Pictures will be made available later
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The Mechanical Age
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5000 BC - Abacus
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Mechanical
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Still used today in the Far East.
Slide Rule
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William Oughtred
More history
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1642 - Adding Machine
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Blaise Pascal
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Adding machine using geared wheels
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Performed subtraction by reversing the gears
1673 - Leibnitz Calculator
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Baron Gottried Wilhelm von Leibnitz
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Expanded Pascal’s calculator
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Incorporated multiplication & division
Further history
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Difference Engine
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Charles Babbage
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Polynomial evaluation
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Designed mechanical machine resembling
modern computers
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Could not be built at the time
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Precision required for gears were beyond the
capabilities of the time
1833 - Difference Engine
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A machine can perform very complex
calculations, much faster than any human being
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Alan Turing (1937) was interested in
developing a machine that could think
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Results in a general purpose machine
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Turing is called the Father of CS
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What have you learned about him already?
Our first great idea!
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Late 1930’s
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Automated adding machine used
electromagnetic relays.
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Howard Aiken (Howard University) & George
Slibitz (Bell Telephone Laboratories)
Early 1940’s
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More electromagnetic computers developed
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Large & slow, but showed promise for
electronic computers.
The Early Electronic Age
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Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator
(ENIAC) - 1945
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John Mauchly & J. Presper Eckert Jr.
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University of Pennsylvania
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18,000 vacuum tubes
First Generation Computers
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UNIVAC
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Universal Automatic Computer
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1951
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48 constructed
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First Commercial Digital Computer
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Designed for business computing instead of
military or research
Used to predict the election of Dwight
Eisenhower when he defeated Adlai Stevenson
on CBS News
UNIVAC
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Very large
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High failure rate
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Consumed a large amount of power
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Difficult to program
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Plugboard required
Downfalls of UNIVAC
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Any questions?
Next class, we will start talking about how
issues with first generation computers were
fixed.
Lab will start discussing binary versus decimal
numbers, and how to convert between them.
Start this now?
Questions?