Assignment 01
Contents:
Overview
Topic: History of Computing
Related Reading: Ch. 1
Due: 9am Tuesday, 23 July 2002
Internet Requirements
You will need an Internet connection for completing the assignment as
well as submission.
Practice Problems
(answers in back of text)
Problems to be Submitted (20 points)
- (3 points)
Exercise 8 of Ch. 1 (p. 29)
- (9 points)
Exercise 12 of Ch. 1 (p. 29)
Hint: For this problem, use the web as a tool. My personal
favorite of search engines is google.com.
- (4 points)
Exercise 35 of Ch. 1 (p. 30)
- (4 points)
At the end of Ch. 1 there are a series of "Thought Questions" (p. 31).
Pick any one question to answer. The length of your answer
should be appropriate for the question, however I envision answers in
the range of 1/2-page to 1-page.
Overall, please type your answers to all of the problems in a
single document to be submitted electronically. Please see details about the
submission process.
Extra Credit (2 points)
The Pascaline device was not actually the earliest gear-driven
calculator. It was designed in 1642 and patented in 1645. An
earliest gear-driven caluclator, capable of performing addition, was
created by someone else in 1623. Sadly it was destroyed in a fire and
the creator died of bubonic plague years before Pascal's device was
created. The original went unnoticed until design documents were
discovered in 1935!.
Who created that earlier device?
Please cite your source of information.
If you find some other earlier device that you feel qualifies as a
gear-driven calculator, feel free to discuss it (and again, cite your
source of information).
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