2.  “The first computer” has several terms but we are going to talk about one of them: the first digital computer.  The first digital computer is short for Atanasoff-Berry Computer or ABC.  It started being developed by professor John Vincent Atanasoff in 1937.

3.  All computers and operating systems include a maintenance function that is used to determine if a program is working correctly or not.  Tim Paterson wrote Debug to serve this purpose in QDOS, and then in Microsoft too.  The term debug is a command in Microsoft Windows, DOS and MS- DOS that runs the program dubug.exe.

4.  Who invented it? – a group of scientists in the United States at the newlly formed Advanced Research Projects Agency or ARPA.  When? – during the late 1950s to the 1970s after the Sputnik was launched by the Soviet Union.  Why? – the people of ARPA thought the US had suffered a technological blow since the Sputnik was launched and wanted to create something new that no one had ever seen before.

5.  Invented by Charles Babbage.  Was the design of a mechanical general- purpose computer.  It was first described in 1837 and Babbage continued to refine it until his death at 1871.  The engine was never built because of its complex desing and lack of project management science.  Was very important in the history of the computers. This is it!

6.  Who? – Herman Hollerith invented this electric tabulating machine.  When? – in 1890!  What for? – it was designed to assist in summarizing information and accounting. Developed to process data for the 1890 US census.

7.  Huh? – ENIAC stands for: Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer.  Was the 1 st general- purpose electronic computer.  Designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory but it was first used in calculations for the hydrogen bomb.  was built in the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering in 1943.

8.  a program is: a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task for a computer. A computer requires programs to function, usually executing the program’s instruction in a central processor!

9. Transistors replaced vacuum tubes because:  T heir small size and minimal weight allowed development of smaller devices.  Lower operating voltages  Lower power dissipation and generally greater energy efficiency  Long life. Can be used for more than 50 years!  Insensitivity to mechanical shock and vibration.

10.  The best candidate for who invented the first microcomputer would have to be the Datapoint 2200 made by CTC in 1970.  It used the 4004 programming instruction set  Its custom TTL logic was the basis for the Intel 8008.

11.  Describes a system that has only two possible digits.  Every number expressed in the binary system is a combination of the numbers 0 and 1.  It is essential in technology. Any electronic circuit can have only two possible states, on or off.  Every communication that takes place inside the computer uses this binary system.

12. www.wikipedia.org www.answers.com www.news.cnet.com www.yahoo.com www.computerhope.com www.computer.howstuffworks.co m www.usbyte.com www.pcnineoneone.com