2 questions to ask

[sceptileex]

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

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 )

[tacoX]

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.

[robgasm]

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^

[Deep Brown]

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...

[Illegalx17]

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.

[unit_number_43]

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.

[robgasm]

wind chill factor also plays a part in it

[MetalSkin]

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&#39 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.

[Illegalx17]

dang, leave it up to metal to be smart >.<

[sceptileex]

dont know about hot spots and hot winds, but i am blown away...