Computer-Science History - 5MMHI

Goal(s)

This course is addressed to future computing professionals. It aims at giving them an overview of the historical evolution of computing (in a broad sense, including communication and networking). More precisely, the course addresses:

• the building of the scientific concepts of computer science.
• the technical evolution of hardware and software, the interaction of technical and scientific aspects, and their interplay with related areas (e.g. microelectronics).
• the relationship of computing with other disciplines.
• the impact of computing on the society.

The course also gives an overview of the life and contribution of the men and women who built computer science and engineering.

Content(s)

1. Overview of the course: motivations, objectives; the specific aspects of computing (epistemology, relationships to other domains, impact on society). Commented general chronology: the main areas of computing and their mutual interaction.
2. The precursors: the invention of algorithms, mechanical calculators, Babbage, Boole, tabulators, analog computers.
3. From Turing to von Neumann (1). Two parallel paths: the first computers, the formalization of algorithms.
4. From Turing to von Neumann (2). The architectural model "of von Neumann"; its first implementations (Manchester, Cambridge); an industry is born.
5. The birth of programming languages: Fortran, Algol, Cobol, Lisp. The "software crisis" ; the birth of software engineering and its recent advances.
6. The mainframe era. From transistors to integrated circuits. Internal and external parallelism.
7. Microprocessors and personal computers. Xerox PARC invents modern computing.
8. Evolution of operating systems
9. Birth and evolution of the Internet
10. The advent of the scientific approach to computing: evolution, progress and achievements, challenges.
11. From data to knowledge: databases, artificial intelligence, the Web.
12. Computing and its environment: the digital world; computational sciences; computing and society.

Specific aspects
A course in the history of science in not conceivable without some notions of epistemology. In this respect, computer science holds a special place, through its dual scientific and technical aspects, and through its approach to problems. On this subject, see the articles of Gilles Dowek (1, 2).

Format of the course
Lectures, with some complements:

- (possibly) lectures by guests on specific subjects.
- reading and commenting historical texts.
- exercises in using languages or systems of historical importance, possibly using simulators.

Students are expected to do individual reading (books, online articles and videos, etc.).