The long road: from computers to programming
World-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology requires its students to start from scratch when it comes to programming. In their introductory computer science subjects, students have to do programming assignments, mostly based on the book “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” by Harold Abelson, and Gerald Jay and Julie Sussman.
Where it all started
But did you know that those programmable electronic devices storing, retrieving and processing data we call computers actually started because of taxes?
With the word “compute” embedded in the word, computers began its story in 1642 with 18-year-old Blaise Pascal who was the son of a French Tax Collector. Pascal began imagining an eight-digit mechanical device with wheels and cogs, and made his first version most likely from materials he got from clocks.
The Pascaline, which was small enough to fit in a brass box, was more akin to a mechanical calculator but nevertheless paved the way for the beginning of computers. After Pascal came a German named Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz who created a similar box that could actually multiply.
With the discovery of Logic and Memory, the two simple elements essential to the creation of the modern computer, computer history charted its course, through the industrial revolution and the discovery of electricity, to telephones and the personal computers you are using to view this article right now.
Other memorable dates, names and discoveries include punchcards (1801 by Joseph-Marie Jacquard), mass-produced calculators (1820 by Charles Babbage), IBM’s forerunner: the Hollerith Tabulating Machine (1890 by Herman Hollerith), and the ENIAC, EDVAC, UNIVAC, FORTRAN and BASIC.
The year 1969 saw the first operating system in UNIX, and the launching of one of many predecessors of the Internet called ARPANet. In that year, future Apple designer Alan Keys proposed the idea for a “personal computer”, but the actual marketing for the PC was started by Altair in 1975 with only 256 bytes of memory. Apple soon marketed PCs the next year.
When Time Magazine selected the computer as its Man of the Year in 1982, you just know the computer revolution has arrived.
What can take us further
These days, problems have moved on from simply determining how accurate or how fast or how vast the memory space is. With our powerful programming languages, we can now instruct computers to perform tasks and organize our ideas on different processes.
Programming deals with the information we want to manipulate and the procedures or rules on exactly how to manipulate said information.
Programming basically means programmers run programs that evaluate simple expressions, debug or figure out errors they encounter, and use computer languages to create the programs themselves.
The game of twenty-one, Continued fractions, Prisoner's dilemma, Generic Arithmetic, and Object-oriented adventure game are only some college-level programming assignments that can set the bar for how well your high school students should get acquainted with computers and programming this school year.
Sources:
“A History of Computers and Networks.” Retrieved October 8, 2008 from
http://www.directron.com/pchistory.html
Kessler, Andy. “How we got here: A slightly irreverent history of technology and markets.” Retrieved October 8, 2008 from
http://www.andykessler.com/andy_kessler/excerpts/How_We_Got_Here_Andy_Kessler.pdf
“Sample Programming Assignments.” Retrieved October 8, 2008 from
http://mitpress.mit.edu/SICP/psets/index.html
“The Elements of Programming.” Retrieved October 8, 2008 from
http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-10.html#%_sec_1.1
(Published 20 October 2008, Smart Communications, Inc.)
