Computer Engineering. The history of the development of computer technology The beginning of the computer era

Direction "Informatics and Computer Engineering" - one of the most stable in terms of high demand in the world. The demand for specialists in the field of programming, informatics and work with computer technology (engineers and technicians) began to grow back in the 90s, in the 2000s it became steadily high, which remains to this day. And it is obvious that this situation will last for more than one decade.

"Informatics and Computer Engineering" is a key group of specialties in the computer industry. Software is the basis for the work of both traditional personal computers and more powerful ones designed for scientific purposes or to support the operation of large enterprises. Graduates of universities in the specialty "Computer Science and Computer Engineering" work in companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Intel, IBM, HP, Apple. But if the companies listed above belong to the so-called "old guard", then today good programmers also work in such companies as Google, Facebook, Amazon, PayPal, EBay, Twitter, etc.

Graduates of the undergraduate or graduate degree in Computer Science and Computer Engineering can hold positions in the following areas:

• software development: this includes system analysts, programmers, developers. During the training, a lot of attention is paid to learning programming languages \u200b\u200bsuch as C ++, Java, etc. It is important to understand that even after graduation, such specialists must constantly take advanced training courses in order to keep up with new trends and changes in programming languages;
• software engineering (or software for computer technology and automated systems) - this includes a more complex development of software products at the intersection of computer technology, engineering, mathematics, design and teamwork;
• quality control and testing;
• development of technical documentation;
• technical support;
• management of large databases;
• web design;
• project management;
• marketing and sales.

Over the past decades, the world is rapidly acquiring new technologies, and specialists in the field of information science and computer technology are needed more and more. Graduates will have career prospects as software engineers, web designers, video game developers, systems analysts, database managers, and network administrators.

Another area of \u200b\u200bspecialization is direct work with computers, complexes, systems and networks. It is a significant subsector of the computer industry. Engineers and technicians learn to work with "hardware", that is, in the production of equipment and computers, as well as a variety of gadgets, such as printers, scanners, etc.
Computer development begins in the R&D departments of large companies. Teams of engineers (mechanics, electronics, electrical, manufacturing, programming) work together to develop, test and manufacture components. A separate area is marketing market research and production of the final product. It is in this sector that there is the greatest shortage of qualified specialists familiar with programming, robotics, automation, etc.

But if these specialties can be classified as quite traditional for this area, today a number of professions that simply did not exist about 10-15 years ago are gaining more and more popularity.

• User interface development: These specialists are required in companies such as Electronic Arts, Apple, Microsoft and others involved in the development of video games, mobile applications, etc.
• Cloud computing: Many companies like Google, Amazon, AT&T and Microsoft need professionals such as a cloud software developer, a cloud network engineer, and a cloud product manager.
• Processing and analyzing large databases: specialists in processing large databases (Big Data) can work in a wide variety of companies - in business and financial sector, e-commerce, government agencies, medical organizations, telecommunications, etc.
• Robotics: these specialists are in demand in large industrial companies, for example, in mechanical engineering (especially in the automotive and aircraft industries).

Universities that offer training in the field of "Informatics and Computer Engineering" include: Moscow State Technical University named after N.E. Bauman, MEPhI, MIREA, MESI, MTUSI, NRU HSE, MEI, MAI, MAMI, MIET, MISIS, MADI, MATI, LETI, Polytech (St. Petersburg) and many others.

Communicate with university representatives personally

As you can see, there are a great many universities and programs in this specialty. Therefore, it is easier and faster to make your choice by visiting the free exhibition "Master's and Additional Education" in or.

Undergraduate
• 09.03.01 Informatics and computer engineering
• 09.03.02 Information systems and technologies
• 09.03.03 Applied Informatics
• 09.03.04 Software engineering

The future of the industry

Information technology (IT) is one of the fastest growing industries. Changes in this industry are driving new technologies and practices for virtually all sectors of the economy. Design, transportation, resource management, marketing, people management - all these and many other areas are changing under the influence of IT.

There are several important processes going on in IT. First, the connectedness of the world is growing due to telecommunication solutions, the volume of data passing through the network is increasing, and solutions for processing this data are developing. Secondly, digital solutions are becoming more mobile and more user-friendly. If now almost every family has a computer, and every other family has a smartphone, then in ten years every city dweller will have at least 5-6 devices, worn on the body and connected with each other. For example, augmented reality glasses, a biometric bracelet for health care, a smartphone with a smart wallet function, etc. Thirdly, new environments for work, education and leisure of people are developing - virtual worlds for a wide variety of purposes, including those created on based on augmented reality technologies.

Innovation in other industries is born at the interface with IT, so there are many cross-industry challenges to break through. Nevertheless, the development and production of hardware, software (software) and security systems remain a priority within the IT sector. A highly promising direction is the design of virtual spaces and interfaces for interacting with them.

Professions of the future

• Information Systems Architect
• Interface designer
• Virtuality architect
• Virtual world designer
• Neural interface designer
• Network Lawyer
• Online Communities Organizer
• IT preacher
• Digital linguist
• BIG-DATA Modeler

The likely breakout points in the coming decades will be:

• an increase in the volume of transmitted data and models for their processing (big data, big data);
• distribution of software that can be influenced by a common user;
• development of human-machine interfaces;
• artificial intelligence technologies;
• semantic systems that work with the meanings of natural languages \u200b\u200b(translation, Internet search, human-computer communication, etc.);
• new quantum and optical computers that can significantly speed up the processing of large amounts of data;
• development of neurointerfaces, including "thought control", various objects, transmission of sensations and experiences at a distance.

A microprocessor is a programmable electrical device designed to process information presented in digital form and is made in a LSI.

Microprocessor system - a specialized electrical device made on the basis of 1 or more microprocessors. The microprocessor device includes: - memory; - input / output element; - a device that ensures the operation of the processor.

Depending on the purpose, M.P. are divided: - information and computing; - control and management devices.

Information and computing devices - microcomputer, personal computer.

Control devices - microcontroller, programmable controller.

Microprocessor means are microprocessors and other LSIs combined in terms of functionality and are intended for building microprocessor systems. System generators. System controllers. System timers. Input / output controllers. Interrupt controllers. Direct memory access controllers.

Microprotskontro-r is a computer, including the memory of a means of communication with peripheral devices with a single supporting structure.

They can be implemented on 1) one-crystal microproc 2) sectional (multicrist) microproc 3) one-crystal microcontrol 4) complex matrix programming circuits

Question 4 The concept of information. Information transfer methods

Analog Digital

Relay Pulse

Information is information about the surrounding world.

A signal is a material and physical phenomenon, the transmission of information

Message - a set of transmitted signals

Signals: 1) continuous 2) discrete

Continuous (analog) signal, the domain of which is a continuous space. Information is presented in the form of convenient data processing and transmission.

The information that is transmitted in the form of digits can be stored and transmitted. The storage is implemented in digital storage. The transmission is carried out by means of a communication line, processing is carried out by a pump system Minimum unit of measurement information 1 bit (0 1) The process of converting information from one type to another is called encoding.

Information-text-numbers-video-audio

Question 5.6 Number systems used in calculus

The arithmetic foundations of the MP technique are binary arithmetic.

Binary number system refers to positional and is used to display numbers - "0" and "1".

A number system is a set of characters and rules for recording them for the purpose of processing information digits.

Positional numbering system - number of digits \u003d base of the system.

The weight of a digit in a number is equal to its value of the digit multiplied by the base to a power of 1 less than the position of the digit in the number.

The most significant digit is 1 less than the base.

All 10th numbers can be converted to 2nd:

In computing, the 8-ary and 16-ary number systems are used. They are used to simplify the writing of binary numbers.

8-fold system: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.16-fold: 0-9, A, B, C, D, E, F. 1110 1110 1101 \u003d EDD16 (H) 111 011 101 101 \u003d 73558 (Q)

567 \u003d 101 110 111; 1FA \u003d 1 1111 1010 Conversion from 10 to 8 hexadecimal: From 8 to 16:

AB816 \u003d 101 010 111 000 \u003d 52708 Arithmetic operations in the binary measurement system: +, -, *, /. 0 + 0 \u003d 0; 0 + 1 \u003d 1; 1 + 0 \u003d 1; 1 + 1 \u003d 10.

+ 1101110

Multiplication:

Multiplication rules: 1 * 0 \u003d 00 * 0 \u003d 01 * 1 \u003d 1 The multiplication operation can be replaced by the addition operation and the shift operation

The division operation The division operation can be replaced with a subtraction operation and a shift operation.

Hexadecimal and Hexadecimal System

1F (16) \u003d 111112, not 00011111 (2)

F1 (16) \u003d 111100012 \u003d 011 110 0012 \u003d 361 (8)

In our rapidly changing modern age, computer science and computing have become not just the norm, but have become our life. Already the quality of human existence begins to depend on how successfully people understand them. If a person knows how to deal with computer equipment on the "you", then he lives in the rhythm of time and he will always be successful.

The very word "informatics" in almost all languages \u200b\u200bof the world denotes a science that is related to computing technology or computers. Speaking specifically, this term has the following definition: this is the name of science, which has as its main task the study of various methods of obtaining, storing, accumulating, transferring, transforming, and using information.

Applied computer science includes its use in society, software, the fight against computer viruses and the information society. Informatics and computer technology are used in modern life in several main directions:

Development of computing systems and the necessary software;

Information theory, which studies all processes associated with it;

Artificial intelligence methods;

System analysis;

Machine animation and graphics techniques;

Telecommunication facilities, which include global ones;

A variety of applications that cover almost all aspects of human activity.

There is no doubt that the developing technological progress has an important impact on our life and constantly presents mankind with new opportunities for receiving, collecting and storing information.

The term "computing" is understood as a set of technical systems, ie computers, and mathematical tools, methods and techniques used to facilitate and accelerate the solution of labor-intensive tasks related to information processing (computing), as well as the branch of technology involved in the development of and the operation of computers.

The main functional elements of modern computers, or computers (from the English word compute, calculate, count), are made on electronic devices, therefore they are called electronic computers, or computers for short.

According to the method of presenting information, computers are divided into three groups:

Analog computers (AVM), in which information is presented in the form of continuously changing variables, expressed in some physical quantities;

Digital computers (DVM), in which information is presented in the form of discrete values \u200b\u200bof variables (numbers), expressed by a combination of discrete values \u200b\u200bof any physical quantity (numbers);

Hybrid computers that use both ways of presenting information.

Each of these ways of presenting information has its own advantages and disadvantages. Digital computers are most widespread because the accuracy of their results, in principle, does not depend on the accuracy with which they are made. This explains the fact that the first analog computing device - the slide rule - appeared only in the 17th century, and the most ancient digital means to facilitate calculations were the human hand and pebbles. Thanks to counting on fingers, the five and decimal number systems arose.

More recent inventions for counting were notched tags and knotted ropes. The first device specifically designed for computing was a simple abacus, from which the development of computing technology began. Abacus counting, already known in Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece long before our era, existed until the 16th-17th centuries, when it was replaced by written calculations. Note that the abacus served not so much to facilitate the actual calculations as to memorize intermediate results. Several varieties of the abacus are known: the Greek (Egyptian) abacus in the form of a plank, on which lines were drawn and pebbles were placed in the resulting columns; Roman abacus, on which pebbles could move along the grooves; Chinese Suan Pan and Japanese Soroban with balls strung on twigs; counting tables, consisting of horizontal lines corresponding to units, tens, hundreds, etc., and vertical lines intended for individual terms and factors; tokens (up to four) were placed on these lines. Russian abacus - abacus appeared in the XVI-XVII centuries, they are still used today. Russian abacus stands in a special place among the varieties of abacus, since they use the decimal, and not the fivefold, number system like all other abacus. The main merit of the inventors of the abacus is the creation of a positional system for representing numbers (see Number system).

The next important step in the development of computer technology was the creation of summing machines and adding machines. These machines were designed independently by different inventors.

In the manuscripts of the Italian scientist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) there is a sketch of a 13-bit adder. The project of another, 6-bit, machine was developed by the German scientist V. Schikkard (1592-1636), and the machine itself was supposedly built in 1623. However, these inventions remained unknown until the middle of the 20th century. and therefore did not have any impact on the development of computer technology.

For more than 300 years, it was believed that the first summing (8-bit) machine was designed in 1641 and built in 1645 by B. Pascal, who, moreover, set up "serial production" of his machines. Several copies of cars have survived to this day. These mechanical machines allowed addition and subtraction, as well as multiplication (division) by multiple addition (subtraction).

The designers of summing machines were the first to implement the idea of \u200b\u200brepresenting numbers by the angle of rotation of the counting wheels: each number from 0 to 9 had its own angle. While implementing another idea - the idea of \u200b\u200bautomatic transfer of tens - Pascal encountered a certain difficulty: the mechanism he invented for transferring tens worked when the counting wheels were rotating in only one direction, and this did not allow subtraction by rotating the wheels in the opposite direction. A simple and ingenious way out of this situation, found by Pascal, was so successful that it is used in modern computers. Pascal replaced subtraction by addition with the complement of the subtracted. For an 8-bit Pascal machine that worked in decimal, the complement of a number would be , so the subtraction operation can be replaced by addition:

The resulting number will be more than the desired difference by 100,000,000, but since the machine is 8-bit, the unit in the ninth bit simply disappears when tens are transferred from the eighth.

The first copy of the world's first adding machine, which performed all four arithmetic operations, was created in 1673 by GV Leibniz after nearly forty years of work on the "arithmetic instrument".

In the XVII 1st-19th centuries. improvement of mechanical adding machines continued, and then also adding machines with electric drive. These improvements were purely mechanical in nature and lost their meaning with the transition to electronics.

The only exceptions are the machines of the English scientist C. Babbage (1791-1871): difference (1822) and analytical (1830, draft).

The difference machine was intended for tabulating polynomials and, from the modern point of view, was a specialized computer with a fixed (rigid) program. The machine had a "memory": several registers for storing numbers; counter of the number of operations with a call - when the specified number of calculation steps was performed, a call was heard; printing device - the results were printed out, and in time this operation was combined with the calculations at the next step.

While working on a difference machine, Babbage came up with the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating a digital computer for performing various scientific and technical calculations, which, working automatically, would execute a given program. The project of this machine, called by the author an analytical one, amazes first of all by the fact that all the basic devices of modern computers are foreseen in it, as well as the tasks that can be solved with its help.

Babbage's analytical engine was supposed to include the following devices: "warehouse" - a device for storing digital information (now it is called storage or memory);

"Factory" - a device that performs operations on numbers taken from the "warehouse" (now it is an arithmetic device);

a device for which Babbage did not come up with a name and which controlled the sequence of actions of the machine (now it is a control device);

information input and output device.

Waiting for the results of calculations.

Babbage intended to use perforated cards (punched cards) of the type used by the French weaver and mechanic J.M. as information carriers for input and output. Jacquard (1752-1834) to control the operation of the loom. Babbage provided input into the machine of tables of function values \u200b\u200bwith control when entering argument values.

The output information could be printed, as well as punched out on punched cards, which made it possible to re-enter it into the machine if necessary.

Babbage also proposed the idea of \u200b\u200bprogrammatically controlling the computational process and the corresponding command - an analogue of the modern conditional branch command: the question of choosing one of two possible program continuation was decided by the machine depending on the sign of a certain calculated value.

Babbage also provided for a special counter of the number of operations, which is available in all modern computers.

Thus, Babbage's analytical engine was the world's first software-controlled computing machine. For this machine, the world's first programs were also compiled, and the first programmer was Augusta Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) - the daughter of the English poet J. Byron. In her honor, one of the modern programming languages \u200b\u200bis called "Ada".

Modern computers in their structure are very close to Babbage's analytical machine, but, unlike it (and all mechanical adding machines), they use a completely different principle of implementation of calculations, based on the binary number system.

The binary principle is implemented using an electromagnetic relay - an element that can be in one of two possible states and move from one state to another when exposed to an external electrical signal.

If in electromechanical adding machines only the energy properties of electricity were used, then in machines built on relays, electricity becomes the most important and direct participant in the computing process.

The first calculating machine using electrical relays was designed in 1888 by an American of German descent G. Hollerith (1860-1929) and already in 1890 was used in the US census. This machine, called a tabulator, included relays, counters, and a sorting box. The data was applied to punched cards, which almost did not differ from modern ones, in the form of punches. When the punch card passed through the machine in positions where there were holes, the electrical circuit was closed, the corresponding counters were added by one, after which the punch card fell into a certain compartment of the sorting box.

Nowadays, computers are increasingly used to manage complex production.

The development of tabulators and other counting and punching techniques made it possible by the end of the 30s - the beginning of the 40s. of our century to build such universal computers with programmed control, in which the main "counting" elements (in modern terminology - the element base) were electromechanical relays.

Relay machines were in operation for a long time, despite the appearance of electronic ones. In particular, the RVM-1 machine designed by the Soviet engineer N.I.Bessonov operated until 1965, however, relay machines could not compete with electronic computers for a long time, as the requirements for reliability and speed were growing.

The first projects of electronic computers appeared only slightly later than the projects of relay machines, because the inventions necessary for their creation were made by the end of the 1920s. our century: in 1904, a two-electrode electronic lamp-diode appeared; in 1906 - a three-electrode electronic tube-triode; in 1918 - an electronic relay (tube trigger).

The first electronic computing machine is considered to be the ENIAC machine (electronic numerical integrator and calculator), developed at the University of Pennsylvania in the USA. ENIAC was built in 1945, it had automatic software control, but it did not have an internal memory device for storing commands.

The first computer with all the components of modern machines was the English machine EDSAK, built at the University of Cambridge in 1949. It was the first to implement the "stored program" principle, formulated in 1945-1946. American mathematician J. Neumann (1903-1957).

This principle is as follows:

commands and numbers are of the same type in the form of representation in the machine (written in binary code);

the numbers are stored in the same storage device as the program;

thanks to the numerical form of writing program commands, the machine can perform operations on commands.

The first domestic computer was a small electronic calculating machine (MESM), developed in 1947-1951. under the leadership of the Soviet scientist, academician S. A. Lebedev (1902-1974), whose name is associated with the further development of Soviet computer technology.

MESM executed only 12 commands, the nominal speed was 50 operations per second. The MESM operative memory, executed on triggers, could store 31 seventeen-bit binary numbers and 64 twenty-bit instructions. In addition, there were external storage devices.

It is interesting that the separate storage of numbers and instructions in the MESM RAM contradicts the Neumann principle of a stored program, on which computer designs were based for many years. In modern computers, there is also a departure from this principle, in particular, there is no need to carry out operations on the values \u200b\u200bthat are encoded in the program commands.

In the history of the development of electronic computers, starting with ENIAC, EDSAK, MESM and continuing to the present, four periods are usually distinguished, corresponding to four so-called generations of computers. These periods can be distinguished according to different criteria, which is why it is often difficult to assign a specific car to a specific generation. Some average characteristics of generations are shown in the table.

The example of the domestic machine BESM-6 (chief designer - S. A. Lebedev) shows how sometimes it is difficult to unambiguously determine the generation of the machine. The development of BESM-6 was completed in 1966; element base - semiconductor transistors; performance - operations per second, capacity of random access memory (RAM) - bits. According to these characteristics, she belongs to the second generation, according to the rest - to the third. Sometimes computers are divided into classes: mini-computers, small, medium, large and super-computers.

Characteristics of generations of electronic computers