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1. How did the first guys program anything on a computer when they could not program the computer to realise its a keyboard when it they dont have a keyboard and this kind of stuff :D
2. If we get our heat from the sun, why is it at a distance in space when we feel the suns heat? why is it, when you go ontop of mountains, it is colder? after all, it is nearer to the sun! or is it because the core gives us heat?
--ARE YOU SMART ENOUGH? (i am not ) :(
2. The higher to go on mountians, the higher elevation and so on. Your closer to the sun, but ALSO closer to space. The higher you go, the closer it gets to space temperature.
1. I know, thats one of my favorites.
1. because the first computers were not liek modern computers and all they did were to do with valves etc, each thign pressed a valve and therefore there was no programmign to be done..
^my theory, although probably wrong^
The first Programs (In colossus) were controlled by cables & switchboards (I believe).... In later ones, they used lengths of paper with holes punched in. In things like the bombes, they were designed for a single process and therefore needed none...
lol yea, umm as for the mountains, thats mainly because the air becomes thinner, and thats where the clouds are, has to do with atmosphere and stuff.
basically...higher elevations are colder because of the same reason a desert is frigid at night. There's no heat retention. nothing to absorb the heat, the air is thin, also higher elevations have a lot of wind which constantly moves heat off a mountain. Of course, I could be wrong, but that's how I understand it.
wind chill factor also plays a part in it :)
damn, wish i had seen this one ealier... unit_number_43 has part of the answer, but its not 100%.
Its all about how earth becomes warm... The main reason is because the heating from the sun is done not on visible light, but on a different spectrum, infrared. The atmosphere (ie... anything gaseous, which includes 'air') is hardly affected by infrared. The infrared actualy hits dirt/rock and that is what gets heated. This is called conduction. The infrared excites the molucules of what solids it hits.. thus on a hot day, sand, concrete or your road will be extreamly hot to touch, more so than the air temp.
The dirt/rock/land tempurature conducts to the local air... so the layer of air closest to the hot rock or concrete will be te higher tempurature...
but then we have wind and convection. air that is hot weighs less than air that is colder, this is becuase of it's density. So when the air gets hotter, it moves up. As well as, wind will blow the air, and thus moving the 'hot spots' of air.
So this is why you can get a hot wind, or a cold wind, its just the wind moving air from places that are eithr hot or cold.
Obviously the top of a mountain is so high up, that by the time heat gets up that high, most of the heat will have disipated. Becuase at that hight there isn't that much to heat up (as in rocks/land/soil) there is no real way for that area to get too hot.....
Hope that explains the heat issue. (see this link for more details)
Now for the second one... a few people have covered why.... basicaly the first computer is considered to be a loom that was inventedin 1801 by Joseph-Marie Jacquard the loom could have a card inserted. on the card was holes, and a typewritter style thingo would have things fall through the holes, thus affecting the pattern that the loom woudl have on what was woven... this was the granddaddy of punch cards and is generaly considered to be the first programmable device.
Univac 1 was the first commercialy available computer. We're talking late 50's here btw. It was programmed via a unityper. from what i can gather, te unityper used what looked like a typewriter. this enabled them to enter a program onto a tape drive (one of those big holywood style reals). they then loaded the tape onto the univac.
Btw, Charles Babbage invented the Analytical Engine in 1837. The design was basicaly what modern computers perform now. Unfortunatly at the time he couldn't find any backers to help fund building it. How different today would be if someone had funded building a mechanical based computer back in 1837.
The first electronic digital computer was the Eniac, 1946. It was developed to calculate WWII balasitics tables. This was used for artillery and bombing. It had 19000 vacum tubes, 1500 relays, 100's of 1000's of resistors, capacitors and inductors and consumed 200Kw/h of power. It had thirty seperate components and weight approx. 30 tonnes, including power supply and cooling systems. If your wondering how that compares to your desktop compter? well the average power supply consumes 200W/h... so Eniac consumed 1000 times the power per hour than yours.
The input method was via punch cards, which had been used previously for mechanical based machines. The output was also a punch card.
From what I can determine, the programming was done via changing switches and cables. Repetative calculations were 'hard wired' into it via hand, but obviusly this could be rewired if changes were required.
As you can see, your question raises a lot of answers. it all depends on what you consider as the definition of computer.
dang, leave it up to metal to be smart >.<
dont know about hot spots and hot winds, but i am blown away...
well heating is all a mater of the density of the material. gas has a very low density, liquid slighty more so and solid the highest density. The actual atomic mass impacts on this of course, but i'm not aware of a gas thats more dense than a liquid, though some liquids may be more dense than some solids.
So thats why solids heat up first, liquids next and gas last, if at all.
If you go to the beach or a lake on a hot day (in subtropical climates). You can actualy feel the tempurature difference of the water. You can feel in the shallow portions that the water is warm, while in the deeper parts its colder. This is partly due to warmer water rises, but mainly because the surface is heated up first due to being in the firing line first.
But currents can move these hot areas of water, so you get the water moving, this can be considered a hot spot... its not a good term, just think of it as a warmer area of water.
Same thing with air. air near water or land is heated from induction from the surface. air moves away from the surface slowley as it heats. wind moves the warm air in different directions.
think of a desert... all that sand, sooo hot. via radiation and induction the air is heated to a very warm temperature... and as such when the wind blows, large bodies of warm air can be moved... this is why on a windy hot day, the wind actualy feels hot. it is. Same as on a cold windy day, cold air moved from colder parts can be moved by wind.
Its a tad more complicated than that, but thats sorta the basics of it all.
Thanks for your detailed explanation of both the questions. Although, how did the first computer know how to read, and output what the cards say? Wouldn't it have to be programmed somehow to interpret it?
Hmmm.... not necessarily.... Water has a higher density than Ice.... Mercury has a higher density than a few metals... (e.g. Iron, Lead, Copper, Magnesium, Aluminium...)Quote:
Originally posted by MetalSkin@Apr 22 2005, 02:05 PM
well heating is all a mater of the density of the material.* gas has a very low density, liquid slighty more so and solid the highest density.* The actual atomic mass impacts on this of course, but i'm not aware of a gas thats more dense than a liquid, though some liquids may be more dense than some solids.
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ARE YOU STONED? :blink:
nooo.... just slightly crazy...
yeah i see :D
I said that thinking of mercury, which i new had a very high density. I wasn't sure about ice...Quote:
Originally posted by Deep Brown+Apr 23 2005, 03:23 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Deep Brown @ Apr 23 2005, 03:23 AM)</div>Quote:
Hmmm.... not necessarily.... Water has a higher density than Ice.... Mercury has a higher density than a few metals... (e.g. Iron, Lead, Copper, Magnesium, Aluminium...)
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Thats why i said:
<!--QuoteBegin-Metal Skin@Apr 22 2005, 02:05 PM
well heating is all a mater of the density of the material.* gas has a very low density, liquid slighty more so and solid the highest density.* The actual atomic mass impacts on this of course, but i'm not aware of a gas thats more dense than a liquid, though some liquids may be more dense than some solids.
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gets all a tad complicated Talox, its all a matter of how a logic engine works.
basicaly its a bunch of switches, relays and flip flops... when the punch card gets shoved in, it changes the state of certain relays/switches/flip flops.
When the program is executed, all it does is run the algorythm (which simply is running a current through a series of gates) and is affected by the settings.
I'll see if i can find a simple example...
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The very first computer, didn't have a 'program' of the modern sense. all it had was a bunch of wires, series of relays, and a whole heap of valves. the result was basicaly the state of a select set of relays, from memory. In the more newer ones, the result was punched onto a card, based on the settings of the relays.... but i will need to confirm that.
Yeah..the *edit* US army had a big computer taht used vacuum tubes they had to plug into different spots. And i was gunna explain the whole heat thing, but metal beat me to it lol. The computer might've been huge and expensive, but it made troop calculations and movement assesments a lot easier.
It's quite simple taco. Your answer is correct but not fully correct.Quote:
Originally posted by tacoX@Apr 21 2005, 07:52 AM
2. The higher to go on mountians, the higher elevation and so on. Your closer to the sun, but ALSO closer to space. The higher you go, the closer it gets to space temperature.
1. I know, thats one of my favorites.
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The reason it's colder when your on a mountain is becasue the sun heats our earth and like you said taco The higher the elevation, The colder the temperatues.
mmm, good questions to bug teachers.
hahaha i have an egocentric ICT teacher who reckons she knows everything about computers, i asked her about the first computer she went on the explain about the IBM selectric typewriter print ball, what an ass she could have at least bummed from IBM by telling me about the univac 1108 or the 010 card punch
Here is an idea of what the collosus looked like just a few reels and valves there :D by few i mean 1000 hehehe
Just read on the forums someone mentioned charles babbage, and i know a descendant of charles babbage you know :P
aww uve all got too much time on ure hands lol
