In our first assignment, I introduced ancient computing methods.
They were the abacus, Babbage’s Analytical device and Leibniz’s step reckoner.
Check out these images:
Leibniz calculator: https://www.hannover.de/en/content/view/full/612085
LOOK HOW COMPLICATED THEY ARE!!!!!!!
It is crazy to see the things that humans invent!
Each of these devices did not use electricity. They used gears with sprockets or other physical devices like beads to represent numbers to add, subtract and multiply.
In this brief lesson, we will look at two inventors of computers in the 20th century. The first inventor, Conrad Zuse ( a German engineer) built the first programmable mechanical computer. Check out the following images:
Conrad Zuse built his machine in his living room at home around 1935.
Conrad Zuse created the first computer programming language. Check out the following document:
https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Software/Plankalkul.html
QUESTION:
What is the name of the first programmable computer language created by Zuse? (hint: look at the second line in the second paragraph)
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Luckily, the Nazi high command did not use any of his ideas. They could not see any relation between his work and the war effort.
The second inventor we will look at is Alan Turing. He is considered to be the father of computer science. Here are pictures of him:
During the early parts of World War II, the Germans were using the enigma machine:
They used this machine to encrypt (encode) all their military messages. The machine encrypted data so that it was really hard to break the code.
Alan Turing then choose a number of super smart people who could solve problems and they settled in Bletchley Park.
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/bletchley-park-home-of-the-codebreakers/wRANFg9s
Write down what the third paragraph in the above document writes:
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Look at the next paragraph. Alan Turing and his work shortened World War II by how many years?
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Alan Turing and his group first cracked the German Enigma machine in early 1941. Basically from then on, the Allies were able to de-code almost all of the Nazi messages.
However, Alan Turing was openly gay during a time in Britain when it was still illegal. As a result he was charged with “Indecent behaviour” and as a result he committed suicide because he was denied access to his research facilities. Look what Time magazine wrote about him in 1999:
In 1999, Time magazine named him one of its "100 Most Important People of the 20th century," saying, "The fact remains that everyone who taps at a keyboard, opening a spreadsheet or a word-processing program, is working on an incarnation of a Turing machine."
Hello everyone,
Attached is document 2 of our look at history of computing. There are three questions to answer. Please answer the questions and send the document back to me. Don't worry about correct answers and not being correct. I can even help you with that.
I hope that you find this interesting.
We will use yesterday's document, today's document and others as the basis of our essay on technology.