UNIT 1

WHY DO WE USE THE COMPUTER

 To handle complex information related tasks that are difficult to do by other
means
 You automate repetitive tasks
 To communicate each other
BASIC CONCEPTS
 By encoding the information so it can be processed easily by electronic means
 Binary encoding
 Analog – continuous (all range)
 Digital – discrete (integral numbers)

 Eyes – 22fps / Games – 60 fps / heat – incandescent – continuous glowing

1 byte = 8 bites
1024 byte = 1 kilobyte
1024 kb = 1 Mb
1024 Mb = 1 Gb

BINARY AND BINARY LOGIC

 Electronically they can represent
o 1  ON  Voltage high
o 0  OFF  Voltage low
 Easy to operate with this kind of values in specific circuits
HOW TO REPRESENT INFORMATION
REPRESENTING NUMBERS
 It´s a base change; i.e. from binary to decimal
 What about numbers with decimals?
o Different representations, such use a group of binary digits to represent
the integer part, and another group of binary digits to represent the
decimal part (i.e. floating point numbers)
 How many values can I represent?
o Baseexponent
  So if we are working in binary and we have eight bits, which is a binary of eight
digits
o 28 = 256 elements
REPRESENTING TEXT
 Match characters with binary digits
 ASCII: American Standard Code for Information Interchange (7 or 8 bits)
 UNICODE: way of representing letters

REPRESENTING IMAGES AND OTHER COMPLEX DATA

 Binary encoding of elements
o Raster image = sorted set of pixels
o Pixel = colour of a specific point
 It can be binary encoded


HISTORY
 2600 B.C.  Abacus (China)
o Mechanical device used to assist a person in performing mathematical
calculations and counting
 1822 A.D.  Difference engine (by Charles Babbage + Ada
Lovelace)
o Considered the first automatic computing machine
o Capable of computing several sets of numbers and print the results
 1936  Z1 (by Kinrad Zuse)
o First electro-mechanical binary programmable computer
o 64 word memory (each word 22 – bits)
o Clock speed: 1Hz
o I/O: punch tape + specific reader
 1936  Turning machine (by Alan Turing)
o Machine that became the foundation for theories about computing and
computers
o Device that printed symbols on paper tape in a manner that emulated a
person following a series of logical instructions (ALGORITHM)
 1944  Mark 1 Colossus & Mark 2 Colossus (by Tommy Flowers)
o First electric programmable computer
o Created to help the British code breakers read Lorenz ciphered German
messages during WWII
 1946  ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator
o First electronic computer used for general purposes, such as solving
numerical problems
o Invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of
Pennsylvania
o Again, to help in WWII
o Upgraded during years until 1956
 30 tons, 167 sqm
 20,000 vacuum tubes, 1,500 relays, 10,000 capacitors and
70,000 resistors
 200 KW of electricity
 $487,000
 1950  UNIVAC 1101 (mainframe computer)
o UNIVAC 1101 or ERA 1101
o Delivered to U. S. government
o First computer able to store and run a program from memory
 1947  Transistor (at Bell Laboratories)
o Was invented by William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain
(got a Nobel Prize in Physics for that)
o It is the key active component in practically all modern electronics
o It is what creates the binary 0´s and 1´s (bits) your computer uses to
communicate and deal with Boolean logic
o In 1954, IBM announced it was no longer planning to use vacuum tubes
in its computers and introduced its first computer that had 2000
transistors
 1971  Intel´s 4004
o First processor
 4-bit register
 Clock speed 740 kHz
 2300 transistors with 10-micron spacing
 60000 operations per second (OPS)
 $200
 Same computer power as ENIAC
 1973  IBM´s 701 (scientific computer)
o First mass produced computer
o 256 words of 40-bit each
o 2200 multiplications per second
 1974  Xerox Alto (first workstation)
o Included a fully functional computer, display and mouse
o Operating like modern computers: windows, menus, icons as interface
to its operating system
 o Never sold
 1975  IBM 5100 (first portable computer)
o Weigh: 25kg
o 5 inch CRT display, tape drive, 1.9 MHz PALM processor and 64 KB of
RAM
 1981  Osborne I (first truly portable computer)
o Invented by Adam Osborne
o Weight: 12 Kg. 5 inch. Display, two 5 ¼’’ floppy drives, one modem and
CP/M OS
o $ 1,795
 1976  Apple I (by Steve Wozniak)
o Single board
o 6502 processor (8-bit)
o 4 kb of memory (expandable up to 48 kb)
o Required a power supply, display, keyboard and case to be operational
 1981  IBM PC
o Intel 8088 (x86 architecture)
o 16-bit processor (4.77 MHz to 8 MHz)
o 6502 processor (8-bit)
o 16 KB of memory expandable up to 256 KB
o MS-DOS OS