DOCSLIB.ORG

Computational Thinking Puzzles

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Computational Thinking Puzzles Issue 1 PUZZLES 2 1 6 5 4 3 Computational Thinking Puzzles 10 9 8 7 A 22 11 11 24 11 8 14 B C 12 10 14 7 19 8 18 5 16 8 8 7 22 12 D 11 4 14 8 16 15 10 2 E 9 6 F 11 19 10 3 14 20 6 11 13 11 19 24 8 1001 0110 G 3 1 11 10 18 9 18 25 8 17 H 0011 1 2 I 24 11 18 15 8 3 9 16 22 19 22 18 A R L J 0001 0010 K 18 3 8 20 3 19 11 Card A 12 L 1100 8 4 21 8 25 22 22 11 19 16 18 11 19 8 M N 14 11 19 10 18 1000 0100 O 12 11 1 22 15 10 10 12 18 10 3 8 P Q 25 11 22 8 23 14 14 R 22 19 11 22 24 22 10 20 21 23 7 10 S T 24 19 8 11 3 10 11 U E V 26 10 15 8 3 11 3 11 26 7 8 19 22 W 7 9 7 14 17 10 8 X Y Z T T H H 0 1 2 3 4 1 Computational thinking puzzles Word search Words can appear in the grid horizontally, vertically or diagonally, running backwards or forwards. Different Computational thinking is a core set of skills that computer scientists develop as names can cross and overlap. they learn to program. It isn’t something you can only learn through programming Find the following famous computer scientists’ names in the word search grid. Their first and second names though. Puzzles can be a great and fun way to develop the skills. This puzzle book may be in different places. Spaces, accents and hyphens are not included. involves a wide range of puzzles that involve aspects of computational thinking. ADA LOVELACE, ANITA BORG, BARBARA LISKOV, DANA ULERY, DOROTHY DENNING, FRAN ALLEN, Some are algorithmic puzzles where the aim is to come up with an algorithm that GRACE HOPPER, JEANNETTE WING, KAREN SPARCK-JONES, MARISSA MAYER, MUFFY CALDER, solves the puzzle. Many like Kakuro and Cut Block puzzles are logic puzzles, that URSULA MARTIN, WENDY HALL are all about logical thinking. To be good at them, though, involves inventing your ALAN TURING, CHRIS STRACHEY, EDGAR CODD, EDSGER DIJKSTRA, JOHN VON NEUMANN, own rules and algorithms for solving them. Yet others, like code cracking grids MAURICE WILKES, MUHAMMAD AL-KHWARIZMI, NIKLAUS WIRTH, PHILIP EMEAGWALI, SERGEY BRIN, involve computing concepts and algorithms in puzzle form. TIM BERNERS-LEE, TONY HOARE, VINT CERF If you enjoy these puzzles more can be found at www.cs4fn.org/puzzles/ Which extra name appears in the grid: a forgotten genius of Bletchley Park? Puzzles are most of all for fun, but it’s always good to be learning useful skills too. N K R E C S N I R U T J E A L U S R U A A E F R E C A C N I U E W V N H O J M R O M A K B R I T M O R N H F B Y V H E A D A L O V E L A C E I M R R S P C N N I W I R T H O O O P K R A I E H L S I J P W E N D Y H A L L E N N R I E P T K K K N V O K S I L A Y I F G L W A A S C H M A U R I S E U A V Z E I N R G T A W E E L T R U M S M R S Y P O C G R O B G E F A J E A N N E T T E D K Y A A N W X G A R D R L A D I M M R J H G I C O D D A Z S T O S L M U E O O T W O O E S O H J G I O S A Z H A G N O N T P I H E D S E N P I C I A G R E R E H R Y E O B A R B A R A R M W A S O U H N C I J P D C G K A L A M A C B D C O I U H E L P M N Y M M W A L E O S T R A C H E Y D E I C R N H D I L R P U D E N N I N G E R O O E K B P E N A W S R E N R E B M U F F Y L R Q E M V O N N E U M A N N T D A N A U A A bit of computational thinking wisdom You may be able to use your natural pattern matching abilities to spot some words. An algorithmic thinking approach may work better though. You need an organised way that is guaranteed to find the words. Take the first letter of a word and start at the top left hand corner, scanning along the rows in turn looking for it. When Solutions you find it check in all directions for the second letter. If its not there move on. If it is look for the third letter Answers to a small selection of the puzzles can be found at the back. in the same direction, and so on. Can you improve this algorithm for solving word searches? Full solutions are at: www.cs4fn.org/puzzles/solutions/ CS4FN Puzzles Issue 1 1 2 3 Cypher breaking grid Cut blocks Crack the cipher by completing the crossword-style grid, and it will reveal one of the greatest movie messages There are two rules that must hold of a completed cut block puzzle. of all time. In a cypher, individual symbols are replaced by new symbols. Here letters have been replaced by numbers. We’ve given you a few letters to start. Use the box at the top to record the key to the cypher. 1) Each area marked out by darker lines must contain the numbers from 1 up to the number of squares in the All letters of the alphabet appear in both the key and grid ... but which is which letter? area. For example, the top most area in the first puzzle below consists of 5 squares so those squares must be filled with the numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 with no repeated numbers. If the area has two squares, like the one 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 bottom left below, then it must be filled with the numbers 1 and 2. A 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 2) No number can be next to the same number in any direction, whether horizontally, vertically or diagonally. L R So in the grid below, the fact that there is a 4 on the side means there cannot be a 4 in any of the 5 squares A surrounding it. 22 11 11 24 11 8 14 B Here are two simple cut block puzzles, and then a harder one. 12 10 14 7 19 8 18 5 16 8 8 7 22 C D 4 14 8 16 15 10 2 E F 11 19 10 3 14 20 6 11 13 11 19 24 8 G 2 1 11 10 18 9 18 25 8 17 H I 24 11 18 15 8 3 9 16 22 19 22 18 4 3 A R L J 18 3 8 20 3 19 11 K L 21 8 25 22 22 11 19 16 18 11 19 8 M N 14 11 19 10 18 2 O 5 12 11 1 22 15 10 10 12 18 10 3 8 P Q 25 11 22 8 23 14 14 R 22 19 11 22 24 22 10 20 21 23 7 10 S T 24 19 8 11 3 10 11 U 1 4 V 26 10 15 8 3 11 3 11 26 7 8 19 22 W 3 7 9 7 14 17 10 8 X Y Z 6 14 7 22 12 11 20 8 7 10 10 7 8 20 11 7 24 8 11 18 25 10 16 2 3 5 4 22 20 18 8 11 3 A bit of computational thinking wisdom The great Arab scholar Al-kindi pointed out in the 9th century that you could use frequency analysis to crack A bit of computational thinking wisdom simple cyphers. The most common symbols in the cypher are likely to be the most common letters in English As you fill in numbers, turn what you did into more general rules. Look out for similar situations, pattern and the least common ones the least common letters. matching against your rule, to give you quick ways of filling out the numbers without having to do all the Create a representation of letters used: cross off the letters as you find them.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Early Stored Program Computers
    Stored Program Computers Thomas J. Bergin Computing History Museum American University 7/9/2012 1 Early Thoughts about Stored Programming • January 1944 Moore School team thinks of better ways to do things; leverages delay line memories from War research • September 1944 John von Neumann visits project – Goldstine’s meeting at Aberdeen Train Station • October 1944 Army extends the ENIAC contract research on EDVAC stored-program concept • Spring 1945 ENIAC working well • June 1945 First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC 7/9/2012 2 First Draft Report (June 1945) • John von Neumann prepares (?) a report on the EDVAC which identifies how the machine could be programmed (unfinished very rough draft) – academic: publish for the good of science – engineers: patents, patents, patents • von Neumann never repudiates the myth that he wrote it; most members of the ENIAC team contribute ideas; Goldstine note about “bashing” summer7/9/2012 letters together 3 • 1.0 Definitions – The considerations which follow deal with the structure of a very high speed automatic digital computing system, and in particular with its logical control…. – The instructions which govern this operation must be given to the device in absolutely exhaustive detail. They include all numerical information which is required to solve the problem…. – Once these instructions are given to the device, it must be be able to carry them out completely and without any need for further intelligent human intervention…. • 2.0 Main Subdivision of the System – First: since the device is a computor, it will have to perform the elementary operations of arithmetics…. – Second: the logical control of the device is the proper sequencing of its operations (by…a control organ.
    [Show full text]
  • The Advent of Recursion & Logic in Computer Science
    The Advent of Recursion & Logic in Computer Science MSc Thesis (Afstudeerscriptie) written by Karel Van Oudheusden –alias Edgar G. Daylight (born October 21st, 1977 in Antwerpen, Belgium) under the supervision of Dr Gerard Alberts, and submitted to the Board of Examiners in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MSc in Logic at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Date of the public defense: Members of the Thesis Committee: November 17, 2009 Dr Gerard Alberts Prof Dr Krzysztof Apt Prof Dr Dick de Jongh Prof Dr Benedikt Löwe Dr Elizabeth de Mol Dr Leen Torenvliet 1 “We are reaching the stage of development where each new gener- ation of participants is unaware both of their overall technological ancestry and the history of the development of their speciality, and have no past to build upon.” J.A.N. Lee in 1996 [73, p.54] “To many of our colleagues, history is only the study of an irrele- vant past, with no redeeming modern value –a subject without useful scholarship.” J.A.N. Lee [73, p.55] “[E]ven when we can't know the answers, it is important to see the questions. They too form part of our understanding. If you cannot answer them now, you can alert future historians to them.” M.S. Mahoney [76, p.832] “Only do what only you can do.” E.W. Dijkstra [103, p.9] 2 Abstract The history of computer science can be viewed from a number of disciplinary perspectives, ranging from electrical engineering to linguistics. As stressed by the historian Michael Mahoney, different `communities of computing' had their own views towards what could be accomplished with a programmable comput- ing machine.
    [Show full text]
  • Biographies of Computer Scientists
    1 Charles Babbage 26 December 1791 (London, UK) – 18 October 1871 (London, UK) Life and Times Charles Babbage was born into a wealthy family, and started his mathematics education very early. By . 1811, when he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, he found that he knew more mathematics then his professors. He moved to Peterhouse, Cambridge from where he graduated in 1814. However, rather than come second to his friend Herschel in the final examinations, Babbage decided not to compete for an honors degree. In 1815 he co-founded the Analytical Society dedicated to studying continental reforms of Newton's formulation of “The Calculus”. He was one of the founders of the Astronomical Society in 1820. In 1821 Babbage started work on his Difference Engine designed to accurately compile tables. Babbage received government funding to construct an actual machine, but they stopped the funding in 1832 when it became clear that its construction was running well over-budget George Schuetz completed a machine based on the design of the Difference Engine in 1854. On completing the design of the Difference Engine, Babbage started work on the Analytical Engine capable of more general symbolic manipulations. The design of the Analytical Engine was complete in 1856, but a complete machine would not be constructed for over a century. Babbage's interests were wide. It is claimed that he invented cow-catchers for railway engines, the uniform postal rate, a means of recognizing lighthouses. He was also interested in locks and ciphers. He was politically active and wrote many treatises. One of the more famous proposed the banning of street musicians.
    [Show full text]
  • Women in Computing
    History of Computing CSE P590A (UW) PP190/290-3 (UCB) CSE 290 291 (D00) Women in Computing Katherine Deibel University of Washington [email protected] 1 An Amazing Photo Philadelphia Inquirer, "Your Neighbors" article, 8/13/1957 2 Diversity Crisis in Computer Science Percentage of CS/IS Bachelor Degrees Awarded to Women National Center for Education Statistics, 2001 3 Goals of this talk ! Highlight the many accomplishments made by women in the computing field ! Learn their stories, both good and bad 4 Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace ! Translated and extended Menabrea’s article on Babbage’s Analytical Engine ! Predicted computers could be used for music and graphics ! Wrote the first algorithm— how to compute Bernoulli numbers ! Developed notions of looping and subroutines 5 Garbage In, Garbage Out The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate anything. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform. It can follow analysis; but it has no power of anticipating any analytical relations or truths. — Ada Lovelace, Note G 6 On her genius and insight If you are as fastidious about the acts of your friendship as you are about those of your pen, I much fear I shall equally lose your friendship and your Notes. I am very reluctant to return your admirable & philosophic 'Note A.' Pray do not alter it… All this was impossible for you to know by intuition and the more I read your notes the more surprised I am at them and regret not having earlier explored so rich a vein of the noblest metal.
    [Show full text]
  • Ada Lovelace the first Computer Programmer 1815 - 1852
    Ada Lovelace The first computer programmer 1815 - 1852 Biography Ada Lovelace Day I Born on December 10th, 1815 in London as Augusta Ada Byron Each second Tuesday in October is Ada Lovelace Day. A day to raise the I Parents separated when she was a baby profile of women in science, technology, engineering, and maths to create new role models for girls and women in these fields. During this day the I Father Lord Byron was a poet and died when she was 8 years old accomplishments of those women are celebrated. I Mother Lady Wentworth was a social reformer I Descended from a wealthy family I Early interest in mathematics and science, encouraged by her mother Portrait I Obtained private classes and got in touch with intellectuals, e.g. Mary Sommerville who tutored her and later introduced Lovelace to Charles Babbage at the age of 17 I Married in 1835 William King at the age of 19, shortly after becoming the Countess of Lovelace I By 1839, she had given birth to 3 children I Continued studying maths, supported among others by Augustus De Morgan, a math professor in London who taught her via correspondence I In 1843, she published a translation of an Italian academic paper about Babbage's Analytical Engine and added her famous note section (see Contributions) I Died on November 27th, 1852 at the age of 36 Contributions I First computer programmer, roughly a century before the electronic computer I A two decade lasting correspondence with Babbage about his idea of an Analytical Engine I Developed an algorithm that would enable the Analytical Engine to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, unfortunately, the machine was never built I First person to realize the power of computer programs: Not only used for calculations with numbers I Combined arts and logic, calling it poetical science Figure 3:Ada Lovelace I First reflections about artificial intelligence, but she rejected the idea Bernoulli Numbers Quotes I Play an important role in several domains of mathematics, e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • TCM Report, Summer
    Board of Directors Corporate Donors Contributing Members John William Poduska. Sr. Benefactor-$lO.ooo or more Pathway Design. Inc. Patron-$SOO or more Chairman and CEO AFIPS. Inc." PC Magazine Anonymous. Ray Duncan. Tom Eggers. Belmont Computer. Inc. American Exr.ress Foundation Peat. Marwick. Mitchell & Co. Alan E. Frisbie. Tom and Rosemarie American Te ephone & Telegraph Co." Pell. Rudman. Inc. Hall. Andrew Lavien. Nicholas and Gwen Bell. President Apollo Computer. Inc." Pencept. Inc. Nancy Petti nella. Paul R. Pierce. The Computer Museum Bank of America" Polese-Clancy. Inc. Jonathan Rotenberg. Oliver and Kitty Erich Bloch The Boston Globe" Price Waterhouse Selfridge. J. Michael Storie. Bob National Science Foundation ComputerLand" Project Software & Development. Inc. Whelan. Leo R. Yochim Control Data Corporation" Shawmut Corporation David Donaldson Data General Corporation" Standard Oil Corporation Sponsor-$250 Ropes and Gray Digital Equipment Corporation" Teradyne Hewlett-Packard Warner & Stackpole Isaac Auerbach. G. C . Beldon. Jr .. Sydney Fernbach Philip D. Brooke. Richard J. Clayton. Computer Consultant International Data Group" XRE Corporation International Business Machines. Inc." " Contributed to the Capital Campaign Richard Corben. Howard E. Cox. Jr .. C. Lester Hogan The MITRE Corporation" Lucien and Catherine Dimino. Philip H. Fairchild Camera and Instrument NEC Corporation" Darn. Dan L. Eisner. Bob O. Evans. Corporation Raytheon Company Branko Gerovac. Dr. Roberto Guatelli. Sanders Associates M. Ernest Huber. Lawrence J. Kilgallen. Arthur Humphreys The Travelers Companies Core Members Martin Kirkpatrick. Marian Kowalski. ICL Wang Laboratories. Inc." Raymond Kurzweil. Michael Levitt. Carl Theodore G. Johnson Harlan E. and Lois Anderson Machover. Julius Marcus. Joe W .. Charles and Constance Bachman Matthews. Tron McConnell.
    [Show full text]
  • Lovelace & Babbage and the Creation of the 1843 'Notes'
    Lovelace & Babbage and the Creation of the 1843 ‘Notes’ John Fuegi and Jo Francis Flare/MITH Augusta Ada Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage to create a description of Babbage’s unbuilt invention, the Analytical Engine, a highly advanced mechanical calculator often considered a forerunner of the electronic calculating computers of the 20th century. Ada Lovelace’s “Notes,” describing the Analytical Engine, published in Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs in 1843, contained a ground-breaking description of the possibilities of programming the machine to go beyond number-crunching to “computing” in the wider sense in which we understand the term today. This article expands on research first presented by the authors in their documentary film, To Dream Tomorrow. What shall we do to get rid of Mr. Babbage and known to have crossed the intellectual thresh- his calculating Machine? Surely if completed it old between conceptualizing computing as would be worthless as far as science is con- only for calculation on the one hand, and on cerned? the other hand, computing as we know it —British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, 18421 today: with wider applications made possible by symbolic substitution. The Analytical Engine does not occupy common In an early background interview at the ground with mere ‘calculating machines.’ … In Science Museum (London) for the historical enabling mechanism to combine together gen- documentary film about collaboration between eral symbols, in successions of unlimited variety Lovelace and Babbage, To Dream Tomorrow,3 and extent, a uniting link is established between Babbage authority Doron Swade mentioned the operations of matter and the abstract mental that he thought Babbage and Lovelace had processes of the most abstract branch of mathe- “very different qualities of mind.” Swade’s matical science.
    [Show full text]
  • Turing — the Father of Computer Science”
    Towards a Historical Notion of \Turing | the Father of Computer Science" Third and last draft, submitted in August 2013 to the Journal History and Philosophy of Logic Edgar G. Daylight? Eindhoven University of Technology Department of Technology Management [email protected] Abstract. In the popular imagination, the relevance of Turing's the- oretical ideas to people producing actual machines was significant and appreciated by everybody involved in computing from the moment he published his 1936 paper `On Computable Numbers'. Careful historians are aware that this popular conception is deeply misleading. We know from previous work by Campbell-Kelly, Aspray, Akera, Olley, Priestley, Daylight, Mounier-Kuhn, and others that several computing pioneers, in- cluding Aiken, Eckert, Mauchly, and Zuse, did not depend on (let alone were they aware of) Turing's 1936 universal-machine concept. Further- more, it is not clear whether any substance in von Neumann's celebrated 1945 `First Draft Report on the EDVAC' is influenced in any identifiable way by Turing's work. This raises the questions: (i) When does Turing enter the field? (ii) Why did the Association for Computing Machin- ery (ACM) honor Turing by associating his name to ACM's most pres- tigious award, the Turing Award? Previous authors have been rather vague about these questions, suggesting some date between 1950 and the early 1960s as the point at which Turing is retroactively integrated into the foundations of computing and associating him in some way with the movement to develop something that people call computer science. In this paper, based on detailed examination of hitherto overlooked pri- mary sources, attempts are made to reconstruct networks of scholars and ideas prevalent to the 1950s, and to identify a specific group of ACM actors interested in theorizing about computations in computers and attracted to the idea of language as a frame in which to understand computation.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief History of Computers
    History of Computers http://www.cs.uah.edu/~rcoleman/Common/History/History.html A Brief History of Computers Where did these beasties come from? Ancient Times Early Man relied on counting on his fingers and toes (which by the way, is the basis for our base 10 numbering system). He also used sticks and stones as markers. Later notched sticks and knotted cords were used for counting. Finally came symbols written on hides, parchment, and later paper. Man invents the concept of number, then invents devices to help keep up with the numbers of his possessions. Roman Empire The ancient Romans developed an Abacus, the first "machine" for calculating. While it predates the Chinese abacus we do not know if it was the ancestor of that Abacus. Counters in the lower groove are 1 x 10 n, those in the upper groove are 5 x 10 n Industrial Age - 1600 John Napier, a Scottish nobleman and politician devoted much of his leisure time to the study of mathematics. He was especially interested in devising ways to aid computations. His greatest contribution was the invention of logarithms. He inscribed logarithmic measurements on a set of 10 wooden rods and thus was able to do multiplication and division by matching up numbers on the rods. These became known as Napier’s Bones. 1621 - The Sliderule Napier invented logarithms, Edmund Gunter invented the logarithmic scales (lines etched on metal or wood), but it was William Oughtred, in England who invented the sliderule. Using the concept of Napier’s bones, he inscribed logarithms on strips of wood and invented the calculating "machine" which was used up until the mid-1970s when the first hand-held calculators and microcomputers appeared.
    [Show full text]
  • Pioneers of Computing
    Pioneers of Computing В 1980 IEEE Computer Society учредило Золотую медаль (бронзовую) «Вычислительный Пионер» Пионерами учредителями стали 32 члена IEEE Computer Society, связанных с работами по информатике и вычислительным наукам. 1 Pioneers of Computing 1.Howard H. Aiken (Havard Mark I) 2.John V. Atanasoff 3.Charles Babbage (Analytical Engine) 4.John Backus 5.Gordon Bell (Digital) 6.Vannevar Bush 7.Edsger W. Dijkstra 8.John Presper Eckert 9.Douglas C. Engelbart 10.Andrei P. Ershov (theroretical programming) 11.Tommy Flowers (Colossus engineer) 12.Robert W. Floyd 13.Kurt Gödel 14.William R. Hewlett 15.Herman Hollerith 16.Grace M. Hopper 17.Tom Kilburn (Manchester) 2 Pioneers of Computing 1. Donald E. Knuth (TeX) 2. Sergei A. Lebedev 3. Augusta Ada Lovelace 4. Aleksey A.Lyapunov 5. Benoit Mandelbrot 6. John W. Mauchly 7. David Packard 8. Blaise Pascal 9. P. Georg and Edvard Scheutz (Difference Engine, Sweden) 10. C. E. Shannon (information theory) 11. George R. Stibitz 12. Alan M. Turing (Colossus and code-breaking) 13. John von Neumann 14. Maurice V. Wilkes (EDSAC) 15. J.H. Wilkinson (numerical analysis) 16. Freddie C. Williams 17. Niklaus Wirth 18. Stephen Wolfram (Mathematica) 19. Konrad Zuse 3 Pioneers of Computing - 2 Howard H. Aiken (Havard Mark I) – США Создатель первой ЭВМ – 1943 г. Gene M. Amdahl (IBM360 computer architecture, including pipelining, instruction look-ahead, and cache memory) – США (1964 г.) Идеология майнфреймов – система массовой обработки данных John W. Backus (Fortran) – первый язык высокого уровня – 1956 г. 4 Pioneers of Computing - 3 Robert S. Barton For his outstanding contributions in basing the design of computing systems on the hierarchical nature of programs and their data.
    [Show full text]
  • Ada and the First Computer
    Ada and the First Computer The collaboration between Ada, countess of Lovelace, and computer pioneer Charles Babbage resulted in a landmark publication that described how to program the world’s first computer by Eugene Eric Kim and Betty Alexandra Toole eople called Augusta Ada King’s father “mad and bad” for his wild ways, but he was better known as Lord Byron, the poet. Ada inherited her famous father’s P way with words and his zest for life. She was a beautiful, flirtatious woman who hobnobbed with England’s elite and who died at the youthful age of 36, the same age at which her father died. And like Byron, Ada is best known for something she wrote. In 1843 she published an influential set of notes that described Charles Babbage’s An- alytical Engine, the first automatic, general-purpose computing machine ever designed. Although the Analytical Engine was never built—largely because Babbage could not raise the funds for its construction—Ada’s notes included a program for using it to com- pute a series of figures called Bernoulli numbers [see box on page 78]. Ada’s notes established her importance in computer science, but her fascinating life and lineage—and her role as a female pioneer in a field in which women have always been notoriously underrepresented—have lately turned her into an icon. In addition to numerous biographies, she has inspired plays and novels written by the likes of such lu- minaries as Tom Stoppard and Arthur C. Clarke. Conceiving Ada, a movie loosely based on her life, was released by Fox Lorber in February.
    [Show full text]
  • Interview an Interview with Maurice Wilkes
    viewpoints VDOI:10.1145/1562164.1562180 David P. Anderson Interview An Interview with Maurice Wilkes Maurice Wilkes, the designer and builder of the EDSAC—the first computer with an internally stored program—reflects on his career. RESENTED HERE ARE excerpts What was your role? from an interview with Sir The university took me on as the boy Maurice Vincent Wilkes, the who did the work! Analog computers developer of the Electronic were much in the air then and a differ- Display Storage Automatic ential analyzer was ordered. We were PCalculator (EDSAC), microprogram- starting up this mathematical labora- ming, symbolic labels, macros, and tory when I received an invitation to subroutine libraries. Wilkes, the 1967 join in the war effort working on radar. ACM A.M Turing Award recipient and Of course, I didn’t know the exact na- winner of the ACM lifetime member- ture of the work at the time of the invi- ship award, is a former member of tation but I was one of a small group of Olivetti’s Research Strategy Board people from the Cavendish who were and an emeritus professor at the Uni- let into the secret. versity of Cambridge Computer Labo- ratory in the U.K. David P. Anderson, Who was it that told you? Principal Lecturer in the History of It was [Robert] Watson-Wattb himself at Computing at the School of Creative the Air Ministry. So, I went off to do that, Technologies, University of Ports- deserting Lennard-Jones very ungrate- mouth, U.K., conducted the interview fully because he’d got it all fixed up.
    [Show full text]