Difference between revisions of "CSC103: DT's Notes 1"
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In this course we are going to look at the computer as a tool, as the result of technological experiments that have crystalized currently on a particular design, the von Neumann architecture, on a particular source of energy, electricity, on a particular fabrication technology, silicon transistors, and a particular information representation, the binary system, but any of these could have been different, depending on many factors. In fact, in the next ten or twenty years, one of more of these fundamental parts that make today's computers could change. | In this course we are going to look at the computer as a tool, as the result of technological experiments that have crystalized currently on a particular design, the von Neumann architecture, on a particular source of energy, electricity, on a particular fabrication technology, silicon transistors, and a particular information representation, the binary system, but any of these could have been different, depending on many factors. In fact, in the next ten or twenty years, one of more of these fundamental parts that make today's computers could change. | ||
| − | [[Image:SteamboyTheMovie.png|right|200px]] Steamboy, a Japanese animé by director Katsuhiro Ohtomo (who also directed ''Akira'') is interesting in more than the story of a little boy who is searching for his father, a scientist who has discovered a secret method for controlling high pressured steam. What is interesting is that the movie is science fiction taking place not in the future, but in middle of the 19th century, in a world where steam progress and steam machines are much more advanced than they actually were at that time. One can imagine that some events, and some discoveries where made in the world portrayed in the animated film, and that technology evolved in quite a different direction, bringing with it new machines, either steam-controlled tank-like vehicles, or ships, or flying machines. | + | [[Image:SteamboyTheMovie.png|right|200px]] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348121/ '''Steamboy'''], a Japanese animé by director Katsuhiro Ohtomo (who also directed ''Akira'') is interesting in more than the story of a little boy who is searching for his father, a scientist who has discovered a secret method for controlling high pressured steam. What is interesting is that the movie is science fiction taking place not in the future, but in middle of the 19th century, in a world where steam progress and steam machines are much more advanced than they actually were at that time. One can imagine that some events, and some discoveries where made in the world portrayed in the animated film, and that technology evolved in quite a different direction, bringing with it new machines, either steam-controlled tank-like vehicles, or ships, or flying machines. |
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| + | For computers, we can make the same observation. The reason our laptops today are designed the way they are is really the result of happy accidents in some ways. The way computers are designed, for example, with one processor (more on multi-core processors later), a system of busses, and memory where both data and programs reside side-by-side hasn't changed since John von Neumann wrote his (incomplete and never officially published) ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC,''<ref name="vonNeumann">John von Neumann, First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, transcribed by | ||
| + | Michael D. Godfrey, Stanford U., Jan 2010, http://qss.stanford.edu/~godfrey/vonNeumann/vnedvac.pdf</ref> article, in June of 1945. | ||
| + | One can argue that if von Neumann hadn't written this report, we may have followed somebody else's brilliant idea for putting together a machine working with electricity, where information is stored and operated on in binary form. | ||
| + | For computers were not always electrical machines. Initially they were mechanical machines. The abacus, | ||
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Revision as of 22:21, 29 January 2012
- ↑ John von Neumann, First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, transcribed by Michael D. Godfrey, Stanford U., Jan 2010, http://qss.stanford.edu/~godfrey/vonNeumann/vnedvac.pdf
