Harvard mark-I and the bug, Computer Engineering

Assignment Help:

The next important effort in the direction of devising an electromechanical computer was made at Harvard University mutually sponsored by IBM and Department of UN Navy, Howard Aiken of Harvard University created a system known as Mark I in 1944. Mark I was a decimal machine means that computations were performed employing decimal digits.

Some of you should have heard a term known as 'bug'. It is mostly used to denote errors in computer programs. This term was invented when one day a program in Mark-I didn't run accurately because of a moth short-circuiting the computer. Since then moth or bug has been linked with problems or errors in computer programming. So process of eliminating error in a program is termed as 'debugging'.

The common shortcomings of these electromechanical and mechanical computers were: 

  • Inertia/Friction of moving components limited speed.
  • Data movement using liners and gears was very unreliable and difficult.

Change was to have a storing and switching mechanism with no moving parts. The electronic switching device 'triode' vacuum tubes were used so first electronic computer was born.


Related Discussions:- Harvard mark-I and the bug

Basic elements of assembly language, Basic elements of  Assembly language:...

Basic elements of  Assembly language: Any Assembly language which consists 3 types of instruction statements that are used to define the program operations: Data secti

What is the length of function code at user-command, What is the length of ...

What is the length of function code at user-command? Every menu function, push button, or function key has an associated function code of length FOUR (for example, FREE), which

What are the data types of the external layer, What are the Data types of t...

What are the Data types of the external layer? The Data types of the external layer are :- ACCP, Char, CLNT, CUKY, CURR, DATS, DESC, FLTP, INT1, INT2, INT4, LANG, LCHR, L

What is incidence matrix, Incidence Matrix: - This is the incidence matrix ...

Incidence Matrix: - This is the incidence matrix for an undirected group. For directed graphs, the vertex from where an edge is originating will have +1 and the vertex where the ed

Difference among java beans & servlets, Java bean is a reusable component, ...

Java bean is a reusable component, where as the servlet is the java program which extends the server capability.

Word puzzle, You are required to make a class of WordPuzzle, which is basic...

You are required to make a class of WordPuzzle, which is basically a game of finding words inside a 2d-array of characters. The class needs to take rows and columns as arguments an

print the sum of the numbers in the file, Make a file which kepts on every...

Make a file which kepts on every line a letter, a space, and a real number.  For example, it may look like this: e 5.4 f 3.3 c 2.2 f 1.1 c 2.2 Write a script that uses textscan to

Write a program to find the area and perimeter of a circle, Write a program...

Write a program to find the area and perimeter of a circle of given radius # include void main() { float radius, area, perimeter, pi=3.14; printf("\nEnter the rad

Explain difference between risc and cisc, RISC-Means Reduced Instruction Se...

RISC-Means Reduced Instruction Set Computer. A RISC system has decreased number of instructions and more significantly it is load store architecture were pipelining can be executed

And-elimination rule, And-Elimination rule: In generally English says ...

And-Elimination rule: In generally English says that "if you know that lots of things are all true, so you know like any one of them is also true". Because you can specify a c

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd