PV109 History of IT and Trends in Computing

Faculty of Informatics
Autumn 2006
Extent and Intensity
2/0. 2 credit(s) (plus extra credits for completion). Recommended Type of Completion: k (colloquium). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Ing. Jan Kučera (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
prof. RNDr. Václav Matyáš, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Department of Computer Systems and Communications – Faculty of Informatics
Contact Person: Ing. Jan Kučera
Timetable
Thu 14:00–15:50 A107
Prerequisites
! P109 History of IT
Any student of Masaryk University may enlist to this course provided that he or she has not passed it (under any code).
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 17 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
The course is intended for students who seek information on the development of computing aids and information technology since the ancient times and on expected further development of the branch.
Syllabus
  • Pre-history of computing (from abacus to Babbage).
  • First computers.
  • Why to be interested in the history of IT. Formerly used terms. 1st to 5th computer generations. Hardware and software approach to the notion of the generation. Families of computers. Digital, analog and hybrid computers.
  • Historical computer components and peripherals. Former view at main computer parts. Types of store. External storage devices. I/O devices.
  • Personal recollections at IT used in our country. First computers in former Czechoslovakia. How programming the LGP-30 computer looked like. Research Institute of Mathematical Machines and its main achievements. EC and SM computer families.
  • From machine code to programming languages. Languages that principally affected further language development (Algol, Fortran, Cobol, Basic, PL/I, APL, Lisp, Simula, Pascal, C).
  • Operating systems. Computers without an OS. Toward an OS. Components of modern OS. Examples of OS.
  • Trends in H/W and S/W. CISC/RISC, integration, dependencies between H/W, S/W and OS. Networks and Internet. Diversion from procedural languages?
  • Compures and society. Computer: a tool, a partner, or a menace?
Literature
  • Communications of the A.C.M., Vol. 15 (1972), Nr. 7 (speciální číslo věnované historii IT)
  • Communications of the A.C.M., Vol. 40 (1997), Nr. 2 (speciální číslo věnované výhledům do budoucnosti)
Assessment methods (in Czech)
Přibližně ve 2/3 semestru jsou znalosti studentů prověřeny písemným testem. Podmínkou připuštění ke kolokviu je alespoň 50procentní úspěšnost v tomto testu.
Předmět je ukončen kolokviem. To je v souladu se zkušebním řádem obvykle nahrazeno odevzdáním eseje vypracované písemně nebo ve formě webovské stránky. Pro stránku je možné zpracovat vlastní téma nebo si je vybrat z nabídky na webovské stránce předmětu. Volba tématu podléhá schválení vyučujícího. Téma písemné eseje zadává vyučující.
Studenti, kteří končí předmět pouze zápočtem, musí rovněž absolvovat výše zmíněný test, nevypracovávají však esej.
Language of instruction
Czech
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
The course is taught annually.
Teacher's information
http://www.fi.muni.cz/usr/jkucera/pv109/
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2003, Autumn 2003, Autumn 2004, Autumn 2005, Autumn 2007, Autumn 2008, Autumn 2009, Autumn 2010, Autumn 2011, Autumn 2012, Autumn 2013, Autumn 2014, Autumn 2015, Autumn 2016, Autumn 2017, Autumn 2018, Autumn 2019, Autumn 2020, Autumn 2021, Autumn 2022, Autumn 2023, Autumn 2024.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2006, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/fi/autumn2006/PV109