The Analytical Engine Online: A History of Computing

This first set of lab exercises provides you with a quick, hands-on introduction to the tools that you will be using to conduct the exercises for all subsequent modules - namely, your browser program, the World Wide Web, and the online component of the Analytical Engine. Through the use of these tools, you'll come to view your computer in an historical context.

Lab 1.1: It's Browsing Time Again

Lab 1.2: Our Analytical Engine

Lab 1.3: Let's Get Historical

Describe the machine, designed over a hundred years ago, considered to be the first computer

Discuss historical currents that led to the development of modern computers

Describe the explosive growth of computers during the last three decades

Provide you with an opportunity to develop your surfing skills using a browser program and the World Wide Web

Module Quiz

Print
References

We want to impress upon you that modern computer sceince is the result of over a century of technological and societal evolution. We also want you to experience first-hand a state-of-the-art result of this evolution (the World Wide Web¹), as it is the medium through which we deliver all subsequent messages. In the text part of this module we orient ourselves historically in the world of computation. We look at the development of computers and the parallel notion of information processing, and we discuss the progress of these two ideas in the context of the historical forces at work in the past three centuries.
¹pp. 9, 14–15, 67–71

You will see the confluence of technologies (from the Jacquard loom² to the Hollerith tabulating machines, to the vacuum-tube-based ENIAC³, to the transistor⁴, personalities (Charles Babbage, Alan Turing⁵, John Von Neumann, Steve Jobs), and social, political and economic influences (code breaking in World War II, IBM's reluctance to join the computer revolution) that led to the development of the computer sitting on your desk (or lap!)
²pp. 4–5, 7, 36, 83
³pp. 12–13, 15, 16, 17, 83, 282, 304
⁴pp. 16, 235, 329
⁵pp. 13, 271, 275, 296, 298, 321

The metaphor for this first module shares the title of the text - the Analytical Engine⁶, a quaint name for a computer. When Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine in the middle of the nineteenth century, he envisioned not just a mechanical device to process information, but a general-purpose information processor which stored the instructions⁷ it was intended to execute. In this respect, the Analytical Engine is no different from the computers of today. Indeed, in the writings of Babbage (and his chronicler Augusta Ada, Countess Lovelace) we have the seeds of modern computer science.
⁶pp. 2, 7–8, 83, 200, 271
⁷pp. 13, Mod. 2, 234, 273, 285

	Print References
We want to impress upon you that modern computer sceince is the result of over a century of technological and societal evolution. We also want you to experience first-hand a state-of-the-art result of this evolution (the World Wide Web¹), as it is the medium through which we deliver all subsequent messages. In the text part of this module we orient ourselves historically in the world of computation. We look at the development of computers and the parallel notion of information processing, and we discuss the progress of these two ideas in the context of the historical forces at work in the past three centuries.	¹pp. 9, 14–15, 67–71
You will see the confluence of technologies (from the Jacquard loom² to the Hollerith tabulating machines, to the vacuum-tube-based ENIAC³, to the transistor⁴, personalities (Charles Babbage, Alan Turing⁵, John Von Neumann, Steve Jobs), and social, political and economic influences (code breaking in World War II, IBM's reluctance to join the computer revolution) that led to the development of the computer sitting on your desk (or lap!)	²pp. 4–5, 7, 36, 83 ³pp. 12–13, 15, 16, 17, 83, 282, 304 ⁴pp. 16, 235, 329 ⁵pp. 13, 271, 275, 296, 298, 321
The metaphor for this first module shares the title of the text - the Analytical Engine⁶, a quaint name for a computer. When Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine in the middle of the nineteenth century, he envisioned not just a mechanical device to process information, but a general-purpose information processor which stored the instructions⁷ it was intended to execute. In this respect, the Analytical Engine is no different from the computers of today. Indeed, in the writings of Babbage (and his chronicler Augusta Ada, Countess Lovelace) we have the seeds of modern computer science.	⁶pp. 2, 7–8, 83, 200, 271 ⁷pp. 13, Mod. 2, 234, 273, 285

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