A Brief History of Computers

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Which groups of people started technology? Babylonians or Chinese

What was the first form of technology? ABACUS
What span of years did technology begin? 2000-500 BC
Explain what Napiers Bones were used for? Multiplication and Division
What did Schickards Calculator do and what did it lead to? Used in
conjunction w/ Napiers bones to perform automatic calculations. This
eventually led to the binary number system.
6. What is a slide rule? Used for multiplication and division and scientific
functions.
7. What was the Pascaline? One of the worlds first adding machines.
8. What did Charles Babbage create in 1822 and what was the problem with it?
Mechanical computing machine. Too complicated to build until 1853.
9. What can computers be classified into? 5 different types
10.What are the names of the classifications? First generation, second
generation, third generation, fourth generation, and fifth generation.
11.What are the different classifications determined by? Time periods
12.Fill in the following information about First Generation Computers
a. Time Period: 1940-1956
b. Inventor: Le de Forest
c. Main Processing Device: Vacuum Tubes
13.What was the vacuum tube used to do? Used to amplify or create an
electrical signal by controlling the movement of electrons in a low-pressure
space.
14.What did vacuum tubes allow computers to do? Allowed first computers to
perform digital computations.
15.Answer the following questions about ENIAC:
a. What is ENIAC? A large computer that could do things quickly.
b. How much did it cost in 1946, how much would it cost today? Cost
$500,000 in 1946. Equivalent to 5.1 million today.
c. How much did it weight and how much room did it take up? Weighed
30 tons and took up 2400 cubic feet.
d. How long did it take to do one division problem? 29 milliseconds
e. How much faster is the Pentium 4? Million times faster
f. Looking at the pictures of the ENIAC and the processor today, what are
your thoughts? They used giant processors for the computer. Whereas
today we use very tiny processors that can still do everything the large
one could.
16.List two advantages of 1st Generation Computers. It was the only electronic
device. First device to hold memory.
17.List three disadvantages of 1st Generation Computers. Very large in size, too
bulky. Vacuum tubes burned out frequently. They produced a lot of heat.
18.Answer the following about Second Generation Computers
a. Time Period: 1956-1963
b. Inventor: William Shockley
c. Main Processing Device: Transistor
d. Storage Media: Magnetic Disc
19.Answer the following about transistors?

a. Who invented it? Bell laboratories

b. Describe it. Smaller, cheaper, more reliable, less heat
c. What was it? A transistor is basically a switch and is the fundamental
building block of computer circuitry.
d. Explain how the first transistor was like a light switch. Like a light
switch on the wall that lets electricity flow to a light bulb, the transistor
acts as a simple electronic switch, either preventing or allowing current
to flow through.
20.List two advantages of 2nd generation computers. Very fast. Size reduced
considerably.
21.List two disadvantages of 2nd generation computers. Overheated quickly.
Maintenance problems.
22.Answer the following about Third Generation Computers
a. Time Frame: 1964-1971
b. Inventors: Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce.
c. Main Processing Device: Integrated Circuits (ICs)
d. Storage Media: Floppy Disc
23.What is a semiconductor? Transistors were miniaturized and placed on silicon
chips, called semiconductors.
24.What did a semiconductor do? It drastically increased the speed and
efficiency of computers,
25.How did users interact with third generation computers? User interacted with
third generation computers through keyboards and monitors and interfaced
with an operating system.
26.What occurred for the first time due to the integrated circuit? Computers for
the first time became accessible to a mass audience because they were
smaller and cheaper than their predecessors.
27.List three advantages of 3rd generation computers. Much smaller in size.
Improved performance. Production cost was cheap.
28.List one disadvantage of 3rd generation computers. ICs are very complicated.
29.Answer the following about 4th generation computers.
a. Time Period: 1971-Present
b. Inventor: Tedd Hoff
c. Main Processing Device: Microprocessors
d. Storage Media: Floppies and CDs
30.Answer the following about Microprocessors:
a. How many integrated chips is on a microprocessor? Thousands
b. What did IBM do in 1981? Introduced its first computer for the home
user
c. What did Apple do in 1984? Introduced the Macintosh
d. What was able to be formed due to the small computers becoming
more powerful? They could be linked together to form networks, which
eventually led to the development of the Internet.
e. What three things did the fourth generation of computers see
developed? GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices.
31.What are three advantages of 4th generation computers? Compact. Less
power consumption. Production cost is cheap.
32.What is one disadvantage of 4th generation computers? No artificial
intelligence.

33.Answer the following about 5th generation computers?

a. Time Period: Present and Beyond
b. Main Processing Device: Artificial Intelligence
c. Storage Device: Video Disc (DVD)
34.What is helping make artificial intelligence a reality? The use of parallel
processing and superconductors.
35.What two things will radically change the face of computers in years to
come? Quantum computation and molecular and nanotechnology.
36.What is the goal of fifth-generation computing? Is to develop devices that
respond to natural language input and are capable of learning and selforganization.
37.Answer the two questions on the slide of Imagine the Future. The internet will
use different apps to run everything, also it will be extremely fast. The
computer will be super thin, probably made out of only glass. It will also use
artificial intelligence.
38.What is an embedded computer? Not all computers sit on a desktop or fit into
a briefcase. Hundreds of devices contain tiny circuit boards (chips) that are
essential to their operation. These chips are known as embedded computers.
39.List five devices with an embedded computer. Automobiles, Microwaves,
Watches, Cameras, and TVs.
40.What is Cyberspeak? The ultimate wearable computer.
41.What is Nanotechnology? Perhaps the most radical technology in human
history is the quest to build tiny machines that are 1000 times smaller than
the human hair.
42.List five benefits of Nanotechnology. Tiny robots could crawl through your
arteries. Powerful drugs could be delivered to individual cancer cells. Teeth
would be self-repairing. Living space could be transformed with self-cleaning
dishes. Windows could lighten and darken at will.