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Wonderful World of Computers
CS-SAMS
Summer Academy for Math &
Sciences - Computer Science
Summer 2004
Wonderful World of Computers
CS-SAMS
Summer Academy for Minority
Scholars - Computer Science
Summer 2002
Top Ten Reasons for Becoming a
Computer Scientist
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
I thought it would be a great way to learn how to type.
I no longer need to sleep at night. Now I just take naps
while I wait for the system to respond to my commands.
The Binary Number System.
The fact that once I become a computer scientist, I can
financialy ruin Bill Gates to the point that Babygirl
Gates has to go to community college.
Since we are on the money subject, as tempting as most
low wage, benefitless jobs are, I am opting for the big
bucks of computer science.
Top Ten Reasons for Becoming a
Computer Scientist
6. Getting to work on the dingy, dirty, oily, filthy, keyboards
in the student computer lab.
7. Have I mentioned the Binary Number System yet?
8. There is nothing like a tension headache caused by staring
at the monitor.
9. Graduating Suma Cum Lade because I know how to hack
into the system and change my grades.
10. I want to be a nerd like the teacher.
courtesy: Becky Zagurski
The Past
• The field of computing now is 50 years old
• Electron was discovered in 1895
• First electronic computers were built in 1940’s
– For large scientific calculations
– Calculate trajectories
– Code breaking
• In 1950, IBM and Univac bet computers would
become the engine to run large businesses
• News Media called them “electronic Brains”
• Projected number of machines - only a dozen
The Past ctd..
• The first programming languages
– Algol, Fortran, Cobol and Lisp
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First Operating System designed in 1960’s
First Hand calculator appeared in 1972
Computer chip appeared in late 1970’s
IBM PC in 1981
ARPANET ==> World Wide Web ==> Internet
1970
1992
now
The Past
• Main Frame computers have become obsolete now
• Over 70% of households in US have home computers
• The Great Big Promise of Artificial Intelligence
– In 1950 Turing believed that by 2000 we will have computers that
would not be distinguishable from humans
– Chess playing machines would beat world masters by 1980
– But Kasporav could not be beaten by a computer until late 1990’s
• In 1980, Bell Labs believed that Unix would be the world
dominant operating system
• In 1982, Bill Gates thought 640K of RAM would suffice
for many personal users for years to come
The Present
• We are all connected by Email, world wide web
• We can chat with a friend halfway around the world for
free
• We can play games with a remote friend
• We can instantly exchange our pictures over the web
• We can monitor what happens at our home from any
remote location
• We can pay our bills over internet
The Present
• Our cars, homes, and all gadgets we wear are
computerized
• Technology is the fabric of our life
• If all computers were taken out of commission the world
will stop working instantly
• We have become socially isolated and have form
relationships with our virtual friends
• Fighting terrorism using technology
Our Universities
• Carnegie Mellon is the “best” computer
science program in the world.
• Many inventions came out of CMU
• CMU is the home to Nobel prize winners
• Lets take a look at some interesting research
going on at CMU
The Future
• By 2047, almost all the information will be in cyberspace
– Physical objects, humans, buildings, processes and organizations
• We can communicate with one another remotely using all
our sensors
• Computers will be 100,000 times powerful than today
• If Moore’s Law holds (doubling every 18 months), then
computers will be 10 billion times more powerful than
today
• Algorithms speeds have improved as the same way as
hardware
The Future
• Suppose you want to store all you do in a lifetime
– Read Text (60-300 GB)
– Speech Text (15 GB)
– Speech (compressed) - 1.2 TB
– Video (compressed) - 1PetaByte - million
GigaBytes
• What is the storage cost of all this?
The Future
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Much of the world population is illiterate
Multiple Language communication
Understand Video , Music, Gestures
Computers Teaching Kids how to Read
Robots enable by computers
Video and Audio synthesis
– Entire movies and plays to be synthetically generated
• Body Nets
– Artificial eyes
– Remote controlled mouse
• By 2010 speech UI is available in any device you can think
of - Cars, radios, phones, toys
The Future
• Computers disappear to become components for
everything
– Zero cost system on a chip
– One chip fully networked systems
– Appliances talking to each other
• Merge of telephone and Internet
The Future
• Predictions gone wrong
– 1943- Thomas Watson predicted only 5 computers would be
needed for the entire country
– 1977 - CEO of Digital - There would be no use of home computers
– 1995 - VP of Bellcore - if we cannot predict the net what good are
we?
– Some form of voice input and output will be common by 1978
Careers in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence -- Develop computers that simulate human
learning and reasoning ability.
• Computer Design and Engineering -- Design new computer
circuits, microchips, and other electronic components.
• Computer Architecture -- Design new computer instruction sets,
and combine electronic or optical components to provide
powerful but cost-effective computing.
• Information Technology -- Develop and manage information
systems that support a business or organization.
• Software Engineering -- Develop methods for the production of
software systems on time, within budget, and with few or no
defects.
Careers in Computer Science
• Software Engineering -- Develop methods for the production of
software systems on time, within budget, and with few or no
defects.
• Computer Theory -- Investigate the fundamental theories of how
computers solve problems, and apply the results to other areas
of computer science.
• Operating Systems and Networks -- Develop the basic software
computers use to supervise themselves or to communicate with
other computers.
• Software Applications -- Apply computing and technology to
solving problems outside the computer field - in education or
medicine, for example.
The Conclusion
• Future is hard or impossible to predict
• We do tend to predict future as an enhancement of the
present
• If we can imagine we can build it
• But something's just cannot be predicted
– Eg: internet, home computers
• One thing is certain
– Future is exciting
– We all are part of it