Note: I am putting these here because students have asked them in the past, this is not a reflection of what will be on quizzes.
A: The IEEE has had a code of ethics since 1912 but until recently it was more focused on professional ethics than the ramifications of the work on society at large. (Emerson W. Pugh, Creating the IEEE Code of Ethics. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5337855)
A: Of course, I have a page on my website that can give you a good start in finding some computer scientists who are not white. Let me know if you think there is someone I should add!
A: "Early electronic computers were fitted with a panel of light bulbs where the state of each particular bulb would indicate the on/off state of a particular register bit inside the computer. This allowed the engineers operating the computer to monitor the internal state of the machine, so this panel of lights came to be known as the 'monitor'. As early monitors were only capable of displaying a very limited amount of information and were very transient, they were rarely considered for program output. Instead, a line printer was the primary output device, while the monitor was limited to keeping track of the program's operation" - Wikipedia (Computer Monitor, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_monitor#cite_note-3, Date Accessed: 8/4/22)
A: Depends on what you mean but the first patent was in 1947 (The Dawn of Video Games: Crash Course Games #3, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGLdlkZozpI, Date Accessed: 8/4/22)
A: A "computer" used to be defined as a person who computed, basically a "computer" was a math secretary and not thought of as a very high skilled job, and one often assigned to women. (This is why my (Ariel's) grandmother was disappointed when I declared I would be majoring in Computer Science) Being a computer programmer was assigned the same low status at first and mostly assigned to women. Once more money started going into the field, men started working as programmers as well and eventually reversed the demographics so that by the 1970s about 80% of computer programmers were men, this is similar to the percentage of computer programmers who are men today. Another factor in the fact that all six of the programmers of the first re-programmable computer, the ENIAC, were women was that a large portion of the men in the country were soldiers fighting in WWII.
A: In 1951 a program was developed that could play Checkers. (Alan Turing and the beginning of AI, https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/The-Turing-test, Date Accessed: 8/4/22)
Were women always big in computer history? There were women mentioned early on doing big things!
How much did the FIRST computer cost? How much did the first MODERN computer cost?
A: Good news! Other than knowing it exists you don't have to understand machine code for this class!
A: The ENIAC, the first electronic re-programmable computer can be seen, in part, at the Smithsonian. (ENIAC, https://www.britannica.com/technology/ENIAC, Accessed: 8/4/22)
A: There wasn't really one "most important" thing, there is a stereotype out there of a genius guy in a basement figuring everything out, but it never really works out like that. Everything in computer science is a team effort, building piece by piece over decades, just like everything else.
A: It depends on what you mean, they had a parade for the people who designed the ENIAC when its existence was declassified because it was credited with helping win WWII.
How did the pioneers, like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, figure out how to write code? It's mind-blowing to think there was nothing, then they just figured it out and created a whole new future.
A: For a long time these women were written out of history and many people still aren't talking about them or black computer scientists who have made large contributions to the field but there is a movement to make their contributions more well known. For example, there is even a conference named Grace Hopper to commemorate women in tech and encourage a new generation of women in tech.
A: The UNIVAC was introduced in 1951 and cost, in today's money $7million. (UNIVAC: the first mass-produced commercial computer (infographic), https://www.pingdom.com/blog/univac-computer-infographic/, Accessed: 8/4/22) The Altair 8800 was the first personal computer, released in 1975 costing about $3,100 in today's money, or $2,200 if you wanted to just get a kit and figure out how to build it yourself. (Altair 8800, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800, Accessed: 8/4/22)