CSC 221: Computer Programming I

Fall 2004

Computer basics and history

hardware vs. software
generations of computer technology
evolution of programming
why Java?

hardware vs. software

basic terminology:
hardware the physical components of the computer
e.g.,

processor (Pentium 4, Celeron, Athlon, PowerPC, Alpha)

memory (RAM, cache, hard drive, floppy drive, flash stick)
input/output devices (keyboard, mouse, monitor, speaker)

software programs that run on the hardware

e.g.,

operating system (Windows XP, Mac OS X, Linux)

applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, RealPlayer, IE, Mozilla)
development tools (JDK, BlueJ, .NET, CodeWarrior)

The easiest way to tell the difference between hardware and software is to kick it. If it
hurts your toe, its hardware.
Carl Farrell

History of computing technology

DYK?

When were "modern" computers invented?

When were computers accessible/affordable to individuals?
When was the Internet born?
When was the Web invented?
How did Bill Gates get so rich?

the history of computers can be divided into generations, with

each generation defined by a technological breakthrough
0. gears and relays
1. vacuum tubes
2. transistors
3. integrated circuits
4. very large scale integration
5. parallel processing & networking

Generation 0: Mechanical Computers (1642-1945)

1642 Pascal built mechanical calculating machine
mechanical gears, hand-crank, dials and knobs
other similar machines followed

1805 first programmable device, Jacquard loom

wove tapestries with elaborate, programmable patterns

pattern represented by metal punch-cards, fed into loom
could mass-produce tapestries, reprogram with new cards

mid 1800's Babbage designed "analytical engine"

expanded upon mechanical calculators, but programmable

via punch-cards
described general layout of modern computers
never functional, beyond technology of the day

Generation 0 (cont.)
1890 Hollerith invented tabulating machine
used for 1890 U.S. Census
stored data on punch-cards, could sort and tabulate
using electrical pins
finished census in 6 weeks (vs. 7 years)
Hollerith's company would become IBM

1930's several engineers independently built

"computers" using electromagnetic relays

physical switch, open/close via electrical current

Zuse (Nazi Germany) destroyed in WWII
Atanasoff (Iowa State) built with grad student
Stibitz (Bell Labs) followed design of Babbage

Generation 1: Vacuum Tubes (1945-1954)

mid 1940's vacuum tubes replaced relays

glass tube w/ partial vacuum to speed electron flow

faster than relays since no moving parts
invented by de Forest in 1906

1940's hybrid computers using vacuum

tubes and relays were built
COLOSSUS (1943)

built by British govt. (Alan Turing)

used to decode Nazi communications

ENIAC (1946)

built by Eckert & Mauchly at UPenn

18,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays
weighed 30 tons, consumed 140 kwatts

Generation 1 (cont.)
COLOSSUS and ENIAC were not general purpose computers
could enter input using dials & knobs, paper tape
but to perform a different computation, needed to reconfigure

von Neumann popularized the idea of a "stored program" computer

store both data and programs in Memory
Central Processing Unit (CPU) executes by
loading program instructions from memory
and executing them in sequence
interact with the user via Input/Output devices

virtually all modern machines follow this von Neumann Architecture

programming was still difficult and tedious

each machine had its own machine language, 0's & 1's corresponding to the
settings of physical components
in 1950's, assembly languages replaced 0's & 1's with mnemonic names

Generation 2: Transistors (1954-1963)

mid 1950's transistors began to replace tubes
piece of silicon whose conductivity can be turned on and
off using an electric current
smaller, faster, more reliable, cheaper to mass produce
invented by Bardeen, Brattain, & Shockley in 1948 (won
1956 Nobel Prize in physics)

computers became commercial as cost dropped

high-level languages were designed to make
programming more natural

FORTRAN (1957, Backus at IBM)

LISP (1959, McCarthy at MIT)
BASIC (1959, Kemeny at Dartmouth)
COBOL (1960, Murray-Hopper at DOD)

the computer industry grew as businesses could buy

Eckert-Mauchly (1951), DEC (1957)
IBM became market force in 1960's

Generation 3: Integrated Circuits (1963-1973)

integrated circuit (IC)
as transistor size decreased, could package many
transistors with circuitry on silicon chip
mass production further reduced prices
1971 Intel marketed first microprocessor, the 4004, a
chip with all the circuitry for a calculator

1960's saw the rise of Operating Systems

an operating system is a collection of programs that manage peripheral devices and

other resources
allowed for time-sharing, where users share a computer by swapping jobs in and out
as computers became affordable to small businesses, specialized programming
languages were developed
Pascal (1971, Wirth), C (1972, Ritche)

Generation 4: VLSI (1973-1985)

Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)
by mid 1970's, could fit hundreds of thousands of
transistors w/ circuitry on a chip
could mass produce powerful microprocessors and
other useful IC's
computers finally affordable to individuals

late 1970's saw rise of personal computing

Gates & Allen founded Microsoft in 1975

Gates wrote BASIC compiler for personal computer

would grow into software giant, Gates richest in world
[Link]

Wozniak and Jobs founded Apple in 1977

went from garage to $120 million in sales by 1980

IBM introduced PC in 1980

Apple countered with Macintosh in 1984

Stroustrup developed C++ in 1985

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Generation 5: Parallelism & Networking (1985-????)

high-end machines (e.g. servers) can have multiple CPU's

in 1997, highly parallel Deep Blue beat Kasparov in speed chess match

Year

Computers on the
Internet

Web Servers on
the Internet

2002

162,128,493

33,082,657

2000

93,047,785

18,169,498

1998

36,739,000

4,279,000

1996

12,881,000

300,000

1994

3,212,000

3,000

1992

992,000

50

1990

313,000

1988

56,000

1986

5,089

1984

1,024

1982

235

1969

most computers today are networked

Internet born in 1969, connected 4

computers (UCLA, UCSB, SRI, & Utah)

mainly used by govt. & universities until late

80's/early 90's

Web invented by Berners-Lee at CERN in

1989

designed to allow physics researchers to share

data and documents
not popular until 1993 when Andreessen
developed graphical browser (Mosaic)
Andreessen would go on to found Netscape, and
Internet Explorer soon followed

stats from NetCraft & Internet Software Consortium

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Evolution of
programming:
machine language
late 40s / early 50s:
programmers coded
directly in machine
language
each machine had its own
set of instructions
(sequences of 0's & 1's)
corresponding to its
underlying hardware
extremely tedious,
error-prone

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Evolution of programming:
assembly language
mid 1950s: assembly languages
replaced numeric codes with
mnemonic names
an assembler is a program that
translates assembly code into
machine code
input: assembly language program
output: machine language program

still low-level & machine-specific, but

easier to program

gcc2_compiled.:
.global _Q_qtod
.section
".rodata"
.align 8
.LLC0: .asciz "Hello world!"
.section
".text"
.align 4
.global main
.type
main,#function
.proc
04
main:
!#PROLOGUE# 0
save %sp,-112,%sp
!#PROLOGUE# 1
sethi %hi(cout),%o1
or %o1,%lo(cout),%o0
sethi %hi(.LLC0),%o2
or %o2,%lo(.LLC0),%o1
call __ls__7ostreamPCc,0
nop
mov %o0,%l0
mov %l0,%o0
sethi %hi(endl__FR7ostream),%o2
or %o2,%lo(endl__FR7ostream),%o1
call
__ls__7ostreamPFR7ostream_R7ostream,0
nop
mov 0,%i0
b .LL230
nop
.LL230: ret
restore
.LLfe1: .size
main,.LLfe1-main
.ident "GCC: (GNU) 2.7.2"

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Evolution of programming: high-level language

late 1950's present:
high-level languages allow the
programmer to think at a
higher-level of abstraction
a compiler is a program that translates
high-level code into machine code

/**
* This class can print "Hello world!"
*
@author Dave Reed
*
@version 8/20/04
**/
class Greeter
{
public Greeter() { }

input: C++ language program

output: machine language program

public void SayHello() {

[Link](Hello world!);
}
}

similar to assembler, but more complex

an interpreter is a program that reads and executes each language statement in

sequence
Java programs are first compiled into a virtual machine language (Java byte code)
then the byte code is executed by an interpreter (Java Virtual Machine)

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Why Java?
Java is a general-purpose,
object-oriented language
derived from C++, which was an
object-oriented extension of C
Java was designed to be a
simpler, more robust language
added features to make
software engineering easier;
removed features that led to
confusion

Java and C++ are the

dominant languages in
industry
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If you want to know more

check out the following (purely optional) links
Computers: History and Development
Personal Computers: History and Development
Computer Museum History Center
The History of Apple Computers
The History of Microsoft
Internet Pioneers: Tim Berners-Lee
Internet Pioneers: Marc Andreessen
Webopedia entry on Programming Languages

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