Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. While 'computers' go back to (almost) prehistory (in particular, machines to calculate the orbits of the heavens), it was Napoleon who prompted the beginning of the modern computing age. What was his objective?
2. The French Ordnance Survey produced a set of mathematical tables called "Tables du Cadastre". How long did it take to produce this document?
3. Charles Babbage, a British mathemetician, was elected to the Royal Society at the young age of 25. He came up with the idea of a mechanical device which would be able to handle the equations currently being done by teams of humans. What did he call his proposed device?
4. Babbage completed construction of his mathematical device in 1832, but he gave it a different name from that in the original proposal. What was the new name given to this device?
5. Shortly after debuting his working model of the first device, Babbage abandoned it for the Analytical Engine. What improvement was envisaged for this newer device?
6. Following the death of Charles Babbage, the world fell into what LJ Comrie called the "Dark Age of digital computing". What event caused the world to jolt itself out of this 'dark age'?
7. In 1929 an analog computer called the Differential Analyzer was developed by Vannevar Bush. At which bastion of higher learning did he do his work?
8. In 1942, two members of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania had a Differential Analyzer and a different idea. One of the two who proposed an electronic computer was John W. Mauchly. Who was the other?
9. Mauchly and his team sent their proposals for their new computer to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, who were responsible for field weapons. Pearl Harbor gave an added urgency to the need for timely and accurate firing tables for military artillery, so they were keen to see the project go ahead. What was the resulting computer called?
10. One concern about the new method of computing was that a vacuum tube generally lasted about 3,000 hours, and the computer had 5,000 of them in its design. The number of tubes increased over the construction of the prototype. How many vacuum tubes ended up in the computer?
11. Eckert's new computer was a bit on the large side. How much did it weigh?
12. Eckert's new computer was a major improvement on the past, but it still had some drawbacks (apart from size and appetite). How many numbers could it store at one time?
13. One person whose interest in the new computer was John von Neumann, a mathematician who had been the youngest ever associate professor at the University of Berlin. He moved to the USA in 1930 and became a consultant to what?
14. John von Neumann also became involved in the creation of a successor to Eckert's computer. What was this successor called?
15. One of the relics of this newer computer was the use of a word to describe one of its functions. Which word has come down to us from this as one of the more ubiquitous in computing?
16. June 1945 saw the publication of John von Neumann's "First Draft of a Report on the [computer name here]". How many subsequent drafts of the report were published?
17. While the evolution of the physical computer was relatively straightforward, the problem of creating operating systems and other software to make them work was anything but. Who ruefully stated that "the realisation came over me with full force that a good part of the remainder of my life was going to be spent in finding errors in my own programmes"?
18. The earliest successful operating software was finally written using symbols instead of words. The computer then would translate these symbols into binary code. This was arduous work, and errors were not easily spotted. Which new computer language invented in 1957 made life easier for computer programmers?
19. Less than a decade later, a new programming language was devised with an aim to bringing computing to the masses - or at least, the masses of university students! Which language broke the barrier between the computer scientists and the non-scientific population?
20. It is clear from looking at the history of computing that it is indeed true that capability doubles about every two years. Whose law states this axiom?
Source: Author
CariM0952
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bloomsby before going online.
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