Computer Programming

11/12
Unit 1: Introduction to Computer Science
1. History of computers
• The timeline of computers spans over several thousand years.
• Generally speaking, the development of computers can be divided
into the following stages:
1. Pre-modern era
2. First generation computers
3. Second generation computers
4. Third generation computers
5. Fourth generation computers
6. Fifth generation computers (?)

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A. Pre-modern era
• The first counting machine: Abacus (~2700 BC) (also called counting
frame, suanpan, or soroban)
• Found in Mesopotamian, Egypt, China, India, Greek, etc.

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• Arithmetic operations using Chinese abacus: Zhusuan

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• Mechanical calculator: Pascaline (or arithmetic machine)
• Invented by B. Pascal in 1652, for addition of numbers up to 8 digits.

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• Mechanical calculator: Difference Engine
• Completed by Charles Babbage in early 1800’s.

Fully functional difference

engine in Computer History
Museum in California. It
can be used to tabulate
polynomials using the
method of finite difference.

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• Mechanical calculator: Analytical Engine
• The successor of Difference engine. Proposed in 1837 by Babbage but
never completed until 1940’s.
• Trial model of a part of
the Analytical Engine,
built by Babbage, as
displayed at the Science
Museum (London)
• Primitive design of
modern computers
possessing the units of
input, memory,
processing unit, and
output

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• Tabulating machine: Hollerith’s machine
• Invented by Herman Hollerith to perform data summation for 1890
US census.

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B. First-generation computers
Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)
• The first electronic digital computing
device, built in 1939-1942 in ISC,
designed to solve systems of linear
equations.
• Features: binary digits, fully electronic,
and almost fully automatic.
• Demerits: Special-purpose, lack of
changeable stored program and not
programmable.

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 Colossus computer
• Designed during world war II to help in
the cryptanalysis. Specifically, it was
developed to decode German enigma
machines Lorenz SZ40, SZ42a, and
SZ42b ciphers.
• It used vacuum tubes to perform
Boolean and counting operations.
• Considered as the first programmable,
electronic and digital computer.
• Its existence was kept secret until mid
A Lorenz SZ40 machine on display at the National
70’s. Cryptologic Museum, Fort Meade, Maryland, USA.

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• Reconstructed Colossus Mark II in National Museum of Computing
(2007):

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 Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
• Developed by the US Army Ordnance Department and the University
of Pennsylvania during 1943-1946 to solve problems related to
ballistic trajectories.
• Designed by John Murchly and Presper Eckert in Pennsylvania. It
costed approximately $500,000 USD.

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• ENIAC was pioneering …
• The earliest electronic general-purpose, high-speed, and
programmable computing device. It was also the first electronic
store-program computer (after 1948) in which program
instructions are stored in electronic memory.
• Involved in research on hydrogen bomb.
• But ENIAC was …
• Very huge: 1800 square feet in size
• Very heavy: about 27 tonnes
• Very power-consuming: 150,000 Watt of electricity
• Very failure-prone: one vacuum tube failed in every 2 days in
average

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C. Second-generation computers
• The second wave of revolutionization of computers was stimulated by
the invention and popularization of transistors.
• Transistor: alternates between conductor and insulator by
manipulating a base current.

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• Advantages of transistors over vacuum tubes:
1. No cathode heater
2. Small size and weight
3. Many transistors can be manufactured as a single integrated
circuit
4. Low operating voltage
5. Higher energy efficiency
6. Low sensitivity of mechanical shock and vibrations
7. Not susceptible to breakage of a glass envelope
8. More compatible in complex circuit designs

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• In the meantime:
• Machine language to assembly language
• Machine language: a purely binary system of 1’s and 0’s
• Assembly language: more human readable codes
• Example: 10110000 01100001 (Machine)
MOV AL, 61h (Assembly)

• The development of high-level programming languages: e.g.

• COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language)
• FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator)

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D. Third-generation computers
• The invention of integrated circuits (IC) by Kilby and Noyce,
independently, in 1950’s made a big push that led to the emergence
of the third-generation computers (1965-1971).
• Integrated circuit: A small piece of silicon microchip fabricated with
thousands of resistors, transistors and capacitors.

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• Features:
• Much smaller compared to
second-generation
computers (e.g. ENIAC)
• Enhanced user interaction by
means of operating system,
keyboard and mouse
• Multi-tasking
• Magnetic tapes and disks as
medium for input/output
• Less power-consuming
• Very costly!
IBM System/360 Model 50 operator’s console (1964)
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E. Fourth-generation computers
• Computers were still not popular among general users until the first
microprocessor became available at the beginning of 70’s.
• Microprocessor: A processor incorporating one to several IC’s (Very
large scale integrated circuits, VLSI) that can reads inputs, process
data according to the stored instructions, and punches out results.

Texas Instrument TMS-1000 (1971) Intel C4004 (1971)

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• The use of VLSI microprocessors makes the computers:
• More powerful and multi-tasking
• Truly general-purpose
• More portable and reliable
• Very small size compared to predecessors
• Easily available
• Much more affordable
• Used as personal computers (PCs)

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• First home-use PC: MIT Altair 8800 (1974)

• Sold at the price of USD

$400-600 (about USD $2000-
3000 nowadays)
• Intel 8080 CPU
• Floppy disk drive available
• 4K memory board
• Altair BASIC (interpreter
developed by Bill Gates and
Paul Allen in 1975; the first
product of Micro-Soft)

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• Apples computers (1976 – )
• Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs started to assemble and sell the first
version of computers, called Apple-1, under their company, Apple
Computer Inc.

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 • Subsequent models of Apple computers:

Apple-II series (1977 – 1993) Apple LISA (1983-1986) Apple Macintosh (1984-1993)
First consumer product of Apple First commercial product with First mouse-driven and GUI PC
Computer, Inc. graphical user interface (GUI) Old Toolbox read-only memory
16-bit processor 5MB HD and dual 5.25” floppy drive 8 MHz CPU, 128K RAM
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Macintosh LC (1990-1996) Power Macintosh (1994-1996) Power Macintosh G3 (1997-1999)
Cheaper alternative with same overall PowerPC 601 @ 80-110 MHz Desktop, mini tower or all-in-one model
performance as Macintosh II CPU for business, home-use and education,
“Pizza-box” design with 16 MHz CPU 8 MB Memory expandable to respectively
264 MB PowerPC G3 @ 233-450 MHz

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• And many more iMac …

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 • Including laptop computers …

iBook G3 Clamshells (2001-2003) iBook G4 (2003-2006) MacBook (2006-present)

PowerPC G3 @ 300-466 MHz PowerPC G4 @ 800 MHz – 1.42 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors
32-64 MB SDRAM 256-512 MB DDR SDRAM DDR2/DDR3 SDRAM

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• IBM PC’s (1981-1987)
• In early 80’s, IBM started to enter into the personal computer
markets, and has developed and released a series of PC’s. Soon they
dominated the microcomputer market and became the standard of
next-generation computers (“PC compatible”).
• IBM 5150 PC (the first in the
series)
• IBM BASIC / PC DOS operating
system
• Intel 8088 @ 4.77 MHz CPU
• 5.25” floppy drives
• 64 – 256 kB Memory
• Open standards and third-party
products compatible
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IBM Personal System/2 (1987-1991) IBM PC Series (1994-2000)
Intel 80386 processor (12 – 40 MHz) Intel Pentium or Celeron CPU (PI, PII and PIII)
3.5” floppy drive @ 133 – 866 MHz
PS/2 plug-N-play ports for keyboard and mouse Floppy and CD-ROM drives
USB drive available for certain models
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• IBM also developed and marketed laptop computers branded
“ThinkPad” since 1992. (This line was acquired by Lenovo in 2005.)

Lenovo ThinkPad P50 (2015); Intel Core i7 @ 3.6

IBM ThinkPad 380 ED (1997); Pentium GHz, 64 GB DDR4 Memory, 1TB HD, 15.6” anti-glare,
166MMX, 32 MB RAM, 3.2 GB HD, 12.1”, USB 3 ports, HDMI, card readers, thunderbolt 3
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• Along with Apple and IBM, there existed many so-called PC clones in
the market which are considered cheaper alternatives with similar
power and functionalities as the originals.
• Examples: Compaq, Dell, HP

Compaq Presario Dell Grey HP Black 8000

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• High-performance computers (HPC)
• They are also known as supercomputers, which afford superior
computational capabilities compared with general-purpose computers.
• The concept of supercomputing can be dated back to 1960’s when the
Atlas was first installed at the University of Manchester in 1962.

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• Significant advances in hardware architecture, software management
and operating systems made supercomputers more powerful and
more efficient.

Clay-2 at NASA (1985) Blue Gene at Argonne National Lab (1999)

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 • Recent supercomputers:

Fujitsu K-Computer, Japan (2011) NSC Tianhe-II, China (2013) NSC Sunway TaihuLight, China (2016)
(710000 cores, 10 PFLOPS) (3 millions cores, 34 PFLOPS) (10 millions cores, 93 PFLOPS)

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• World record in 2018: IBM Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)

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F. Fifth-generation computers
• Nowadays, the high-end computers accessible to many users already
employ ultra large scale integration (ULSI) technology, parallel
processing and artificial intelligence (AI) software.
• These computers can be used for many purposes:
• Robots
• Neural network (artificial intelligence)
• Gaming
• Large-scale simulations and data processing
• And many more
• Any chance that we can push the limit of computer technology
further?
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• A possible solution: quantum computer!
• Digital electronic computers: classical bits
• Quantum computers: quantum bits or qubits
• Quantum computers can be operated using quantum logic gates and
measurements.
• Some applications of quantum computers:
• Cryptography
• Quantum search and simulations

Bristlecone: manufactured by Google Quantum

AI Lab, 72-qubit quantum computer chip (2018)
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2. Computer hardware and software
• There exist many computer hardware (physical components), either
central or peripheral, that perform various kinds of works.
• Despite the different functionalities, all computer hardware can be
classified into one of the following categories defined since Babbage’s
work on the Analytical Engine:
1. Input
2. Memory
3. Processing unit
4. Output

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• All modern computers share the same template called von Neumann
architecture, as designed by John von Neumann in 1945.

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• The following scheme depicts the basic hardware in a modern
personal computer:

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 (i) Input devices: translate data into a form the computer can process
• Keyboard – electromechanical input (QWERTY PC-US layout, 104 keys)

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• The major functions of various keys:

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• Alternative designs of keyboards (ergonomic)

Maltron 3D dual-hand Microsoft Natural ergonomic

keyboard (US) with Malt key keyboard 4000 (2005)
distribution (1974)
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• Mouse – hand-held pointing device (mechanical and optical)

• The first mechanical computer

mouse, Engelbart mouse, was
designed in 1964.
• Two perpendicular discs mounted
on the bottom.
• Able to move cursor horizontally or
vertically on GUI.
• Nicknamed “mouse” because of
the cord that comes out the end.

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• More modern designs of computer mouse:

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 • Other peripheral input devices
• (a) Scanner and camera (visual information)

Portable computer scanner Barcode scanner Mobile scanner

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• (b) microphones (audio information)

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• (c) motion sensors (spatial information)

Security motion detector using USB Wii motion sensor using infrared
optical control radiation
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• (d) Specific types of information

Ultrasound machine Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine

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 (ii) Output devices: translate information processed by a computer
into a form humans can understand.
• Display screens (softcopy; exists electronically)

Cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor Liquid crystal display (LCD) monitor

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• Printers (hardcopy; physically)
• Nonimpact printers: Ink-jet printers and laser printers

Inkjet printer Laser printer

Use color ink cartridges Use powder toner
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• Thermal printers: not as popular as the other two types
• Low-to-medium resolution

Thermal printer: paper turns Thermal wax-transfer printer: wax

black when heated adheres permanently on papers
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• Other output devices
• (a) Photo printer and large-scale plotters

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 • (b) mixed output: sound, voice, video

Computer speaker Text to speech Videoconferencing

- Produces digitized sound - Converts data to speech- - Inputs video into a multimedia
like sound system and outputs on a display
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 (iii) Processing units, memory and storages
• This is the “brain” of a computer that performs all the arithmetic
operations. Because of this, it is referred to as the central processing
unit (CPU).
• Despite simple calculations, a CPU can do such calculations millions
or even billions of times every second.

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• The internal structure of CPU: AMD 9085 (Intel 8080)

http://pastraiser.com/ Unit 1: Introduction to Computer Science 55

• CPU is capable of performing large quantities of operations at a
tremendous speed, but it can’t store information.
• In order to make computations more efficient, useful intermediate
data that may be retrieved in future steps is stored in separate
hardware.
Random Access Memory (RAM) Cache

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• More long-term storage of data can be achieved by using either hard-
disks (HD), floppy disks, CD-RW / DVD-RW, USB drives or external
hard drive.

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• Hierarchy of data storage

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• (iv) Networks
• A hardware that connects computers together to share files,
programs and data resources.

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• Some terminologies in networking:
1. Node: individual computers connected to a network
2. NIC: the card installed on each node that allows for data transfer
3. Server: the central computer that all nodes are connected to
4. Hub: a hardware that transfers data between computers or
network devices in a network
5. Router: a network device that can analyze the data being sent
over a network, change how it is packaged, and send it to
another network or over a different network
6. Topology: the layout of a network (bus, star or ring)

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• All computers are operated by a main program called the operating
system (OS).
• There are two major functions of an OS:
• It manages the hardware and software on a computer.
• It provides a consistent interface, called application programming
interface (API), for application developments by programmers.
• There are three major OS that are used worldwide:
• Windows (by Microsoft)
• MacOS (by Apple)
• UNIX / Linux (open source)

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• Windows (latest: Windows 10, 2015)

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• MacOS X (latest: 10.13 High Sierra 2017)

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• UNIX / Linux

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