Storia dell'Informatica (History of Informatics) -- 2007/08
Last modified: 27 - Septembre - 2007
Leonardo da Vinci's Adding
Machine (???)
- Basic knowledge of: computer architecture, operating systems,
programming and programming languages.
- Good understanding of written English.
This course deals with the history of computation,
computers and computer science from the distant "roots" (e.g.
ancient calculating techniques and devices) up to our days.
Given the breadth of the topic, we will only able to outline the whole
development and concentrate on some chosen "milestones".
We will try to pay attention not only to the technological (hardware and
software) issues but also to the non-technological ones.
The order in which the single topics are listed and the way in which
they are grouped need not correspond to the way they have been covered in
the lectures.
- Computing before computers:
number systems, abaci and other calculating "aids".
- Computing before computers: arithmetical machines.
- Computing before computers: when computers were people,
difference machines.
- Babbage's Analitycal Engine.
- Mathematicians and the origin of computing: from Leibnitz to von
Neumann.
- Mechanical and electromechanical calculators.
- The very first computers: ABC, ENIAC, ...
- The first stored-program computers: EDVAC, the IAS machine, EDSAC,...
- Early development: computers as scientific calculators and as
business machines.
- The first four "computer generations".
- Real time, time sharing, minicomputers.
- The development of programming languages and operating systems.
- Software contractors and sw products.
- The Italian scene.
- Martin Campbell-Kelly and William Aspray
Computer: A History of the Information Machine, 2nd ed.
Westview Press, 2004.
- Michael R. Williams
A History of Computing Technology, 2nd Edition
Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Press, 1997.
- Computing Before Computers - a book on the history of
computing, edited by W. Aspray;
pdf version
- Course notes: see directories Appunti_XXX at the address
http://informatica.aulaweb.unige.it/
In the menu on the left, choose: Anno Accademico 2007/2008
then, in the central menu, choose: Specialistica
and, finally, choose: Storia dell'Informatica (2007/08)
- Links, books, papers, ....
For the present academic year, the exam will consists in
- a paper on a topic chosen by each student from a list of proposed topics (list in preparation) ;
- an oral exam on the topics covered in the course.
Comments to
gerardo costa