Bits & Bytes About Computers |
"The start of what we know as computers began in the mid-1800s with Charles Babbage.... He called his devices 'Calculating Engines.'"
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J 004
Rooney |
Computers: Faster, Smaller, and Smarter by Anne Rooney |
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J 004.16
Sherman |
The History of the Personal Computer by Josepha Sherman |
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J/ 004.678
Graham |
The Internet Revolution by Ian Graham |
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J 004.678
Sherman |
The History of the Internet by Josepha Sherman |
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/006.7
Gosney |
Blogging for Teens by John Gosney |
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J/ 006.7
Rominger |
Extraordinary Blogs and Ezines by Lynne Rominger |
“In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had commissioned the Department of Defense to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency – called ARPA, for short…. ARPA’s original mission was to design the first electronic network.”
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Computer History Museum
http://www.computerhistory.org/ |
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May 22, 1973
In Palo Alto, Xerox researcher Robert Metcalfe typed out a memo "proposing an 'Ethernet'" on a Selectric typewriter. It was entitled "Ether Acquisition" and contained hand-drawn illustrations of "'boosters' interconnecting branched cable, telephone, and ratio ethers in what we now call an internet.... If Ethernet was invented in any one memo, by any one person, or on any one day, this was it."
(From "This Day in History" on the Computer History Museum Website)
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Did you know?
In the 1950s, Erna Schneider Hoover created a computerized switching system for telephone traffic, which employed principles still used to help control telephone and network communications traffic today.
In 1979, Roberta Williams got hooked on computer games. When she had exhausted the few adventure games available, she decided to create her own. Not long after, she and her husband founded the gaming software company, Sierra On-Line.
In 1989, Louise Kirkbride, a CalTech graduate and former employee of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, founded Answer Systems and later, Broad Daylight, where she has developed technology to improve automated customer service systems and improve business-consumer communications over the Internet.
(Profiles extracted from MIT's Invention Dimension Website) |
Computing Geniuses |
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J/ 004.0922
Northrup |
American Computer Pioneers by Mary Northrup |
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J 305.4362
Hopper
Marx |
Grace Hopper: The First Woman to Program the First Computer in the United States by Christy Marx |
J 510.52
Lovelace
Wade |
Ada Byron Lovelace: The Lady and the Computer by Mary Dodson Wade |
Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992)
"Her friends called her "Amazing Grace." Serving as a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy, Hopper was "a seminal influence on modern computing, developing software for the Mark I and the UNIVAC I computers, and leading the development of compilers for the COBOL Language.... Fond of whimsy, she catalogued the first computer "bug" - a moth that flew into a Mark I relay and caused the machine to malfunction." |
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| Although Hopper is credited with locating the first bug, she did not actually coin the term "bug," which was commonly used prior to 1945. However, she and her team did introduce a new term when they announced that they had "'debugged the machine, thus introducing the terminology 'debugging a computer program.'" |
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Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace (1815-1852)
The ADA Project is named for Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace. Daughter of the famous poet, Lord Byron, Ada preferred the poetry in mathematics and was instrumental in creating the first programming language for Charles Babbage's "Analytical Engine" in the mid-1800s. Thus, Ada was the first computer programmer and, in 1979, the United States Department of Defense named a software language after her.
(Extracted from the Ada Byron article on the ADA Project Website) |
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Get Connected to Fiction |
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JPB
Barlow |
Control by Steve Barlow & Steve Skidmore |
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J/ Fiction
Colfer |
Artemis Fowl : The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer |
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J/ Fiction
Haarsma |
The Softwire: Virus on Orbis 1 by P J Haarsma |
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J/ Fiction
Honey |
Remote Man by Elizabeth Honey |
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J Fiction
Wilhelm |
The Revealers by Doug Wilhelm |
Did you know?
In 1971, Ray Tomlinson sent the first email via the ARPA network. Wonder what it said?
"Something like 'QWERTYUIOP.'"
In 1979, John Shoch and John Hupp of Xerox in Palo Alto discovered the computer "worm." Initially used for testing systems, the worm had the "unintended effect" of invading networked computers.
In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher in Geneva, created "HyperText Markup Language," "Uniform Resource Locator" and "Hypertext Transfer Protocol." With the development of HTML, URL, and HTTP, the World Wide Web was born.
(Extracted from the Timeline on the Computer History Museum's Website) |
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