MCQs — Computer Systems

Charles Babbage: “The Father of Computing” The calculating engines of English mathematician Charles Babbage (1791-1871) are among the most celebrated icons in the prehistory of computing.

The abacus is one of the earliest counting tools; beads moved on rods represent numbers. The other three are mechanical or punched-card machines.

Napier's Bones simplified multiplication (and division) by using rods marked with multiplication tables. They could not store data or print.

The Pascaline used gears and wheels to add and subtract numbers. Multiplication and division were added later by Leibniz's machine.

Charles Babbage designed the Analytical Engine and is often called the "father of the computer." Hollerith built a punched-card tabulator; Pascal and Leibniz built calculators.

Babbage's design had an input unit, a processing unit ("mill"), a store and an output unit, just like a modern computer. It was mechanical, not electronic.

Hollerith's punched-card machine was used for the 1890 United States census and greatly reduced the time needed to process the data.

The Stepped Reckoner extended mechanical calculation beyond addition and subtraction to include multiplication and division.

The Pascaline was built by Blaise Pascal. The Analytical Engine was Babbage's, Napier's Bones were Napier's, and the Stepped Reckoner was Leibniz's.

Generations 1 to 4 used vacuum tubes, transistors, integrated circuits and microprocessors, in that order.

Third-generation machines packed many transistors onto a single chip called an integrated circuit (IC).

Moving from vacuum tubes to transistors, ICs and microprocessors shrank the hardware, reducing size and cost while improving speed.

Ada Lovelace wrote a step-by-step method for the Analytical Engine and is widely regarded as the first programmer.

Putting the CPU on a single chip made computers small and affordable enough for personal use.

Vacuum tubes acted as switches and amplifiers in first-generation machines.

ENIAC and UNIVAC I are classic first-generation computers.

Vacuum tubes were bulky, used much power and generated heat, so they failed often and required large rooms with cooling.

First-generation machines were programmed in machine language (binary). High-level languages came in later generations.

Transistors are small semiconductor switches that were faster, cooler and more reliable than vacuum tubes.

Transistors are smaller and use less power than vacuum tubes, so second-generation machines were more compact, cooler and more dependable.