I. Towards Computers as we Know Them, continued
At the
Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers timeline you will find answers
to all these questions . . . and so much more.
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In 1945, the term "debugging" was first used.
By whom? What did it mean?
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In 1969, Ritchie and Thompson of Bell
Laboratories developed an operating system. What was it called?
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In 1971, IBM developed the first "floppy"
diskettes. How large were they?
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1975 saw the introduction of the first mass produced
personal computer, the MITS Altair 8800. How much did it cost? How much
memory did it have?
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II. The "Modern" Era
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The Intel Corporation has been crucially involved in the development
of modern high-speed computing. Go to their Intel
Hall of Fame site and follow some of the links to answer these
questions.
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When was the first microprocessor
produced by Intel?
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What is the basic building block of a
microprocessor? (Hint)
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How many of these basic components were in Intel's
first microprocessor?
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How many times faster, in terms of "clock speed," is the Pentium 4
than
the first microprocessor?
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What does "Moore's Law" say?
(To find the answer to this question, type "Moore's Law"
into the search box in the blue area on the
upper right of the page. In what sense
is it a "Law"?
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IV. The Internet
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Today, we tend to
think of the Internet and the World Wide Web as being synonymous. In fact,
the World Wide Web is a relative newcomer to the Internet, and the original
ARPAnet network was hardly "world wide". Find the answers to
the questions below in Hobbe's
Internet Timeline:
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How many sites were on the original ARPAnet
in 1969?
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When did research on internetworking begin at
ARPA?
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When was email invented?
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How many years later was the World Wide Web released?
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One of the factors
that contributed to the growth of the Internet was the open quality of
the research on internetworking. All of the original Internet research
reports, called RFCs, were made publicly available. You can access most
of them through the RFC Hypertext
Archive.
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Who wrote RFC #1?
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When was it written?
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What was it about?
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What is the most recent RFC you can find?
(Note that they're are not numbered exactly chronologically! But
you don't have to find the most recent one, just one that's
close.)
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When was it written?
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You can read about the
Internet 2 in the Internet
2 FAQ.
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What is Internet 2?
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How might Internet 2 (eventually) affect your life?
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