1. 1 CS 305 Social, Ethical, and Legal Implications of Computing Chapter 1 History of Computing Herbert G. Mayer, PSU CS status 6/20/2011 Most slides derived from prof. Wu-Chang Feng Slides 15..19 copied from prof. Harrison + Massey

2. 2 Syllabus Impact of Technology Impact of Technology Controlling Technology Controlling Technology History of Computing History of Computing History of Communications History of Communications Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data History of Programming Languages History of Programming Languages History of Information Storage History of Information Storage

3. 3 Impact of Technology Technology impacts society, often in unforeseen ways Examples: Candle light allows us to work during hours of darkness Digital photography eliminates chemical photography, dark rooms E-mail reduced snail mail volumes Laptop computers increased neck- and back pain Cell phones makes users feel safer Automobile solved transportation problems created new ones (emissions, traffic jams)‏ Refrigerators allowed foods to last longer freon impacts the ozone layer Internet vastly enhanced communication enabled outsourcing of programming jobs overseas Other examples from students: …

4. 4 Controlling Technology Mankind, laws, restrictions etc. cannot really “control” invention, but can control deployment Nuclear power P2P networks Gun controlAmish Adopting new technologies affects how people relate Bishops meet twice a year to determine which ones to allow Cars? No! Create more hectic life, causes danger, pollutes Gas barbeque? Yes, brings people closer together Telephone? No, reduces face to face communication

5. 5 Focus: Computer Technology

6. 6 History of Computing Manual Calculators 10 fingers: limited numeric range, fails to work in cold weather Abacus, base 5 and 10: works well with small-ish numbers Mechanical Calculators Pascal (~1643)‏ adder, invented at age 20! Leibnitz (~1660) four function calculator Burroughs (1890s)‏, thought a few units saturate market Charles Babbage (1810) Difference Engine, aborted for AE Babbage’s Analytical Engine AE (1835), also never completed Other Calculating Devices Bouchon, Falcon, Jacques (~1710-1750) punched cards to program repeated weaving patterns John Atanasoff (~1937) Iowa state prof. builds first digital computer Konrad Zuse (~1940) builds first relais-based digital computer with programming language (Plankalkül)

7. 7 History of Computing Computing Innovations Guthrie (~1873) and Edison (~1883) vacuum tubes as switching device Cash register - Ritty (early 1900s)‏ Prevent embezzlement via itemized receipts and printed logs Track tax collected Hollerith (~1900) punch card tabulation for census‏ Presper Eckert and John Mauchly (~1944) build Electronic computer ENIAC, based on Atanasoff’s ideas‏

8. 8 History of Computing: UNIVAC ENIAC was basis for UNIVAC, was commercially not successful Acquired ~1950 by Remington Rand, thus started the first commercially successful computer corporation Used to count votes, predict outcome of 1952 presidential election Predicted Adlai Stevenson lead over Dwight Eisenhower in polls before election close UNIVAC accurately predicted (with 7% of the vote counted) that Eisenhower would win in a landslide Computer programmers of UNIVAC mistrusted their program, modified it to tilt the results more in favor of Stevenson CBS reported the erroneous result instead of the original Original prediction was accurate! Other companies successful at building general-purpose computers: IBM, CDC, NCR, Honeywell, GE, Ferranti, HP, Digital, Ahmdahl, Wang, …

9. 9 History of Computing Programming languages Detail later … Transistors and integrated circuits Bell Labs (1948)‏ Enabled smaller, more powerful computers With higher reliability, critical due to large number of parts Integral in the development of the Minuteman II ballistic missileMicroprocessors Intel 4004 (1969)‏ Eventually allowed computers in everyday devices (cell phones, mp3 players, digital cameras)‏ Today having > 1 Billion transistors

10. 10 History of Communications Telegraph Samuel Morse (1830s)‏ Telegraph machine based on electricity to communicate First line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore (1844)‏ 200k miles of wire by 1877 Put Pony Express out of business Most cities developed fire alarm telegraphsTelephone Alexander Graham Bell (1876)‏ Transmission of human voice electronically Eroded social hierarchies Ordinary citizens calling the governor Telemarketers! Loss of privacy Operators could eavesdrop on conversations

11. 11 History of Communications Typewriter (1873) and teletype (1908)‏ Electronic transmission of typed textRadio Marconi (1895)‏ Used in 1912 by Titanic to signal distress Orson Welles “War of the Worlds” (Halloween 1938)‏ Radio play that demonstrated the power of radio to blur lines of reality Was Welles acting ethically?Television Nipkow (1884), Farnsworth (1927)‏ Used to broadcast Armstrong landing on the moon (1969) Note delay! Just in case‏ Problems with junkies? Influences elections East cost results influence voting on the west coast

12. 12 History of Communications ARPANET Precursor to Internet Decentralized, packet-switched data network Led to current Internet and its applications (E-mail, WWW)‏ Cell phones Other gadgets: Skype, twitter, Facebook …

13. 13 History of Programming Languages Some languages: Binary coding; Assembly language; Relocatable assembler High-level programming languages, and machine independent programming languages FORTRAN (~1956) John Backus, IBM Lisp late 1950s Basic (Beginner’s All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) 1963 Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny at Darthmouth Algol-60, committee, report 1960, Backus + Naur Cobol (COmmon Business Oriented Language) with decimal type, Capt. Grace Mary Hopper US Navy APL (A Programming Language) 1950s Kenneth Iverson IBM Algol-W, Jovial, Algol-68 IBM, committee IBM, 1960, everything except kitchen sink C, Ada, Modula-2, Prolog, C++, Java, C# More from students …

14. 14 History of Information Storage Codex From scrolls (BC) to durable bound volumes (~200 AD)‏ Printing press Gutenberg (1436)‏ Vehicle for mass communication and dissemination of information Martin Luther and the Reformation Instrumental in the publication and dissemination of his theses Unified German languages into 1 common language Hypertext systems Vannevar Bush (1945)‏ Mennex: Information retrieval where associated documents easily linked to each other Led to current WWW hypertext system – Berners-Lee (1990)‏ Search engines Yahoo, Google, etc.

15. 15 Storing Data Wax Tablets [2000BC] auxiliary storage Codex [200s] from scrolls to books The Printing Press [1436+] write once, produce many Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data

16. 16 Paper Tape [1870s] Punched Cards [1890s] Herman Hollarith Magnetic Storage [1920s] For audio Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data

17. 17 Magnetic Data Tape [1951] ~10M on a 2400’ reel Hard Disk [1956] RANDOM ACCESS! 17 Storing, Organizing, Retrieving Data

18. 18 Acquiring Data Keyboarding [1920s] IBM card punch Optical Character Recognition [1950s] Speech Recognition [1961] Barcodes [1974] 18 Storing Organizing, Retrieving Data

19. 19 Radio-frequency identification (RFID) [1980s] Video Recognition [1990s] 19 Storing Organizing, Retrieving Data

20. 20 Discussion Are there technologies you wish had never been adopted? Give examples of how new technologies require society to create new rules Should ripping a CD of your own legal? Would it be legal to leave the digital copy on an open network share? Would it be legal to add it to a P2P sharing library? Can Amazon sell your personal information to third-party partners? Should they be able to? Who is liable for software failures that cause injury or death? What are limits to workspace monitoring?

21. 21 Extra Discussion Do you believe we are more connected or less connected with people today? Should election polls close at the same time everywhere in the US? Should one be prevented from posting content on the Internet that is legal in one country, but not in another?

22. 22 In-Class Exercise List the last three-five consumer electronic devices that someone in your acquaintance purchased List a number of benefits to society this has provided to you and others List a number of potentially harmful benefits the device has “provided” to you List three computer applications that you believe have a huge impact on society. What benefits have they provided? What harmful side-effects did they cause?