Computers and computer science –

between past and future

Prof. Maciej M. Sysło

University of Wrocław,

UMK Toruń syslo@ii.uni.wroc.pl

Warm up 1

These gentlemen are standing in front of ENIAC.

What are they holding?

Mouse

One number

One digit

Keyboard

Decimal digit: 0, 1, …

built out of 22 lamps!!! 2 Maciej M. Sysło

Warm up 2

Fridge store

Nuclear power plant

Supercomputer

Chip zoomed in

What is this?

Supercomputer Earth Simulator

(Japan 2002)

35,000,000,000,000 FLOPS Maciej M. Sysło 3

Computer – what is it?

1969:

‘A person’!!! Maciej M. Sysło 4

5

Computer – first appearance

1892

Rapid Computer,

Chicago,

produced a

computing device

called

comptometer.

Maciej M. Sysło 5

IBM PC

12 August 1981

Microprocessor Heart of the computer

Computers today

Elwro 800 Junior, 1986

Small school computers for children Maciej M. Sysło

The heart of every

device

6

Think Computer –

thinking device!!!

IBM commercial

1924

Maciej M. Sysło 7

Maciej M. Sysło

First electronic calculators

TI DataMath – 1972

4 operations TI 30 – 1977

for engineers

Elwro – Bolek Elwro – Lolek

Calculator

pocket computer

8

Human has always had to count!!!

Fingers, arms, whole body

have been used

Carvings in the wood

have also been made:

Counting a long time ago

Maciej M. Sysło

Chinese counted

up to

10,000,000,000 on

their fingers!!!

9

Maciej M. Sysło

Calculating tools

Suan-pan, China, 10th-11th c. Soroban, Japan, 19th c.

Schoty, Russia, 17th c. Quipu, South America

10

Maciej M. Sysło

Calculating tools

Japan,

school pen-box,

beginning of the 20th c.

Soroban

Writing

utensils

Soroban and

a calculator

11

Maciej M. Sysło

Calculating tools – pen boxes

Napier’s bones

1617

Modern product

Maciej M. Sysło

First calculator

13

Napier’s bones – how to use

25

x 25

125

+ 50

625

2 5

2

5

4

1

1

2

5

0

0

0

+

2 0 5 6

Traditional multiplication: Multiplication with the bones:

Maciej M. Sysło

First calculator

14

Operations: multiplication

table, carrying, addition,

writing under

Operation:

multiplication table,

addition, carrying

Schickard’s machine First calculator – 1624

Drawing from Schickard’s letter to Kepler Schickard’s machine - replica

The rods inspired W. Schickard to invent the first calculator.

15

Schickard's calculator – how it works

Bones in the form of drums, with all the digits.

Operation: • Set bones – the first operand • Set the other operand • Add the digits in windows

Maciej M. Sysło

First mechanical calculators

16

First mechanical calculators…

17

Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662

French philosopher,

mathematician, physicist

Gottfried W. Leibniz, 1646-1716

German philosopher,

mathematician, lawyer,

statesman and diplomat

Pascaline – counter mechanism Real calculating machine – step reckoner

Maciej M. Sysło

Calculators – adders

18

They only add…

All operations

as multiple additions

25

x 25

ABCDE

add 25 five times: 125

add 25 twice: 50

625

Multiplication as addition:

A B C D E

Hasbro’s adding machine

Maciej M. Sysło

Mechanical calculators – adders

19

345

– 137

208

ABCDE

345

– 137

1 00000

1 00208

Subtraction as addition!!!

ABCDE

345

– 137

99999

1

1 00208

ABCDE

345

99862

1

1 00208

ABCDE

345

862 137

99000

1

1 00208

Additions only!

Mechanical calculators – adders

20

Multiplication and division using multiple additions and subtractions

Maciej M. Sysło

Mechanical calculators – just curl!

21

Felix

(for F.

Dzerzhinsky)

Pinwheels

Maciej M. Sysło

Slide rules

Equipment of

every engineer

until 1972

30 cm

150 cm

12 m 22

Curt Herzstark (1902-1988) The perfect

mechanical calculator:

• developed at the

Buchenwald

concentration camp

• perfect design

• practically undestroyable

Maciej M. Sysło

CURTA calculator

– the miracle of technology

23

Curta calculator Perfect design, make and materials

M.M. Sysło

Leibniz ‘stepped drum’ – 1694 Disassembled into individual parts:

Maciej M. Sysło

Curta calculator – marval of technology

25

26

A. Stern, mechanical calculator, 19th c.

Polish notation – J. Łukasiewicz

Calculator Feliks – Feliks Dzierżyński

Foundations of computer cryptography

Negabinary arithmetic, UMC 1, 10 – Z. Pawlak informatyka + 26

Polish traces

Maciej M. Sysło

27

Elliott 803 na UWr,

1965

History, not far away… Elliott 803 – 1965

40 mln

… and later

28

Calculator replaced devices

which contributed to its

invention!!!

1 bn in 2008

Till 1972…

Maciej M. Sysło

Maciej M. Sysło

Today… We have supercomputers too.

Cray-1 (1976)

250,000,000 FLOPS

IBM Blue Gene/L (2005)

80,000,000,000,000 FLOPS

29

Jaguar 2009

1,000,000,000,000,000 FLOPS

Maciej M. Sysło

Today… we have a supercomputer used by everyone.

Google – served by the most powerful computer !!

30

Since when???

New tech???

What new technology will be

invented on IBM PC

that is going to replace PC?

Contemporary technology

31

Where does this difference

between the past and the future

come from?

Why do we remember the past but

not the future?? [Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time]

Till 2???… ?

Maciej M. Sysło