Computer Engineering; Facts And Trivias

FAMOUS COMPUTER ENGINEERS

source: https://www.thefamouspeople.com/computer-engineers.php

FUN FACT:

The two richest humans in the world are computer engineers

Douglas Engelbart

Computer engineer, inventor, and technology luminary Douglas Engelbart is best remembered for his work in early computing interfaces and networking technology and there is no better moment in time to encapsulate that work than the demonstration he gave on On December 9, 1968–a demonstration that would come to be known as “The Mother of All Demos”. The demonstration was a showcase of the work he and his team were doing at the Augmentation Research Lab in SRI International and was packed with then-experimental technologies and software that we now take for granted. In one single demonstration.  Engelbart showcased the computer mouse, hypertext linking, word processing, dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, collaborative real-time document editing, and video conferencing, all linked together via the oN Line System (NLS).

Bill Gates

Bill Gates is an American business magnate and computer programmer who is the co-founder of Microsoft, the world’s largest PC software company. Since the company’s formation in 1975, Gates has held several positions including those of the chairman, CEO and chief software architect. One of the most famous entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution, he has been consistently ranked among the world’s wealthiest people starting from 1987.

Sundar Pichai

Sundar Pichai is a computer engineer and the current CEO of Google Inc. The technology giant Google, which specializes in Internet-related services and products, underwent a major corporate restructuring in 2015 following which Alphabet Inc was launched as its parent company with co-founders Larry Page as its CEO and Sergey Brin as President. Pichai, who had been serving as Google’s head of Products and Engineering, was named the new CEO of Google which is the biggest company under Alphabet Inc. Pichai had joined Google years ago in 2004 as a product manager and led the innovative efforts for several of Google’s products including Google Chrome and Chrome OS which went on to become highly successful. Eventually he took over the management of other Google products like Gmail and Google Docs, and rose through the ranks rapidly.

Jeff Bezos

He founded Amazon.com, an online book store, and later introduced features including one-click shopping, customer reviews, and e-mail order verification. He expanded it to include various other items including clothes, CDs, toys, jewellery, watches, electronics and shoes. He has constantly been improving his web site, and introducing improved facilities for his customers. His childhood dream of space travel spurred the founding of Blue Origin, an aerospace company that is developing technologies to offer space travel to customers. Bloomberg Billionaires Index listed Bezos as one of the wealthiest people in the world with an estimated net worth of $28 billion.

 

FASTEST MICROPROCESSOR

source: https://www.engadget.com/2014/08/30/review-roundup-intels-8-core-haswell-e/

Intel’s 8-core Haswell-E is the fastest desktop CPU ever. Since it was teased in March, enthusiasts have been itching to see how Intel’s 8-core Haswell Extreme Edition processor (the i7-5960X) performs. The $1,000 Extreme Edition chip, on the other hand, has a base clock of 3.0GHz and max turbo speed of 3.5GHz.

USB WITH THE LARGEST CAPACITY

source: https://www.kingston.com/us/company/press/article/41745

DataTraveler HyperX Predator 3.0 is the world’s largest-capacity USB 3.0 Flash drive as it will be available in a 1TB capacity later in Q1. It is shipping now in 512GB capacity. DT HyperX Predator 3.0 is the fastest USB 3.0 Flash drive in the Kingston® family, with speeds of up to 240MB/s read and160MB/s write.

MOST DOWNLOADED GAMES OF ALL TIME

source: https://qz.com/492870/these-are-the-most-popular-ios-apps-and-games-of-all-time/

Game	Release date
Candy Crush Saga	November 2012
Fruit Ninja	April 2010
Angry Birds	December 2009
Subway Surfers	May 2012
Despicable Me	June 2013
Clash of Clans	June 2012
Temple Run	August 2011
Angry Birds Rio	March 2011
Temple Run 2	January 2013
Words With Friends	July 2009

MOST DOWNLOADED APPLICATION OF ALL TIME

source: https://qz.com/492870/these-are-the-most-popular-ios-apps-and-games-of-all-time/

App	Release date
Facebook	July 2008
Facebook Messenger	August 2011
YouTube	September 2012
Instagram	October 2010
Skype	March 2009
WhatsApp	May 2009
Find My iPhone	June 2010
Google Maps	December 2012
Twitter	October 2009
iTunes U	January 2012

MOST EXPENSIVE COMPUTERS OF ALL TIME

source: http://moneyinc.com/most-expensive-computers-ever/

10. 1989 Macintosh Portable – $6,500

It had a 16MHz Motorola CPU, 1 MB of RAM that could be expanded to 9 MB, and a 40 MB hard drive. The display on this model had a resolution of 640 by 400 and was monochrome, and inside was a lead acid battery that weighed two pounds. The cost for the Macintosh Portable was $6,500 when it debuted, which amounts to $12,500 today.

9. Voodoo Envy 171 – $6,500

The 17 inch widescreen display sports a Dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 graphics chipset. Its other impressive specs include a Core 2 Extreme CPU, 4 GB of RAM, and a 600 GB hard drive capacity that uses three different drives

8. 1983 Apple Lisa – $9,995

It had a 12 inch monochrome display, 1 MB of RAM, 5MHz Motorola CPU, and buyers had the option to get a 5 MB external hard drive. The astounding thing is that even though Apple’s Lisa was for the average user, it still cost $9,995, which equals nearly $24,000 today.

7. 1979 Cromemco System Three – $12,495

The Cromemco System Three could run Z80 Basic and Fortran IV and had a 5 MB external hard drive and 512 KB of RAM. Its retail price was $12,495, or approximately $36,000 in today’s dollars.

6. Yoyotech XDNA Aurum 24K – $13,000

In 2013 Yoyotech unveiled a PC capable of playing any 3D game at 4K: the DNA Aurum 24K. For the price, you get a system with amazing graphic capabilities, and it also has a sophisticated cooling system to keep everything running smoothly.

5. 1975 IBM Portable Computer – $19,975

It was the first “mini computer”. The self contained computer had a magnetic tape drive, 5 inch CRT display that could output 16 lines of text with 64 characters each, a cartridge tape hard drive capable of storing 204 KB, and a PALM circuit board processor. If you adjust its 1975 retail price for inflation, the IBM 5100 portable computer would cost about $88,000.

4. Ego for Bentley Notebook – $20,000

It has diamond stitched Bentley leather, is hand built, and is available in a number of color options. Just 250 of these pricey pieces of tech were made available for sale.

3. 24k Gold MacBook Pro – $30,000

The laptop has an exterior covered in 24 carat gold. To top off the extravagant piece made by Computer Choppers, a bespoke high tech gadget company, the laptop also has an Apple logo encrusted with diamonds in multiple colors.

2. Otazu Ego Diamond – $350,000

Ego’s most expensive laptop to date is shaped like a designer handbag, available in many luxe finishes, and starts at $5,000.

1. The Luvaglio One Million Dollar Laptop – $1 million

A laptop with a solid state drive, MP3 player, and Blue-Ray player built in. There are also diamonds dotting the PC, including a power button encrusted in diamonds.

 

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Contributions of Computer Engineering to Society

Computer Engineering has helped a lot with the development of society. Based on statistics, more than 80 000 workers in the United States alone are computer engineers, which is more than 5% of the totality of engineers in the United States. Below are some of the wonders of computer engineering that helped in the development of society.

COMPUTERS

Computers are the main outputs of computer engineers and computer engineering in general. It covers almost all technical sectors such as aerospace, transportation, medicine and many others. The industry is taking advantage of new architecture, materials and designs. It offers computer engineers with many opportunities, from the design of new architectures and new computer circuits, to the development of large clusters of interconnected computers.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Computer Engineers have always been involved in aspects of communications system or telecommunications itself. It has formulated designs for broadcasting, telephony, and satellites. Computer Engineers implement the computer network and development of communicating handheld devices such as iPods and iPhones. Large and small communication systems are controlled by computers, and issues of inter-operability and security are likely to require significant involvement of computer engineers.

ENERGY AND ELECTRICAL POWER

Although Electrical Engineers are often focused with this sector, Computer Engineers have also work for power utilities, which are engaged in tasks such as load forecasting, load flow calculations, stability analysis, and optimization. Computer Engineers in this sector are more focused on algorithms for power trading. Electronic Companies need a much more complex infrastructure for negotiation and economic analysis, and this infrastructure provides employment and professional challenges to many computer engineers.

AEROSPACE

Computer Engineers in aerospace are the one mostly focused on the design. Development of control systems and data management system for aircraft such as helicopters and spacecraft are wheat computer Engineers are exposed to in Aerospace. They are also in charge with Contemporary navigation, sensing, and control systems. In the military, computer engineers contribute designs for radars, rockets and missiles, as well as in electronics, lasers, and optics.

BIOENGINEERING

Computer Engineer also play very vital roles in this sector, particularly on biomedical engineering. They construct designs and control for diagnostic and therapeutic device, on-line monitoring of patients, implanted deviced and automated measurements. For example, computers programs implement all major image acquisition and image enhancement in modern biomedical imagery using X-rays, ultrasonics, computed tomography (“CAT scans”), and magnetic resonance.

MANUFACTURING

Computer Engineers in manufacturing are in charge of the workplace, wherein plethora of computer controlled devices and probes to monitor and regulate manufacturing processes are introduced since most workplaces in manufacturing these days are now “computerized” or more futuristic.

ENTERTAINMENT ENGINEERING

Computer Engineers are the ones who are in charge in technical background in concerts and theaters. They add a more virtual-reality spin to make the experience more dramatic. They are also in charge with rollercoasters and computer games as well.

TRANSPORTATION AND AUTOMOTIVE

Computer Engineers design cars, highways, railroads, and ships, with the additional of traffic management as well.

 

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Outputs of Computer Engineers

Computer Engineers produce different varieties of outputs which are useful in a computer. It can either be Computer Hardware or Software. Below are some examples:

COMPUTER HARDWARE

Intel Core i7

Microprocessor – computer processor which incorporates the functions of a computer’s central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits

Read-Only Memory (top), Random Access Memory (bottom-left), Flash Memory (bottom-right)

Memory Chips –  integrated circuit made out of millions of capacitors and transistors that can store data or can be used to process code.

Hard Disk (left), Solid-State Drive (upper-right), Optical Drive (lower-right)

Data Storage Device – a device for recording (storing) information (data).

Mouse and Keyboard

Input Devices – a piece of computer hardware equipment used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system such as a computer or information appliance

Monitor (left), Printer (right)

Output Devices – any device used to send data from a computer to another device or user

Router (left), Modem (right)

Networking Components –  physical devices which are required for communication and interaction between devices on a computer network

COMPUTER SOFTWARE

iOS (left), Windows OS (right)

Operating Systems – system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs.

Applications –  computer program designed to perform a group of coordinated functions, tasks, or activities for the benefit of the user

Antivirus – computer software used to prevent, detect and remove malicious software.

 

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History of Computer Engineering

 

Before computer engineers have been present, researchers of physics, mathematics and electrical engineering are the first “computer engineers”. They have worked on developing the first computer machines.

Cliffor Berry (left) and John Vincent Atanasoff (right)

In 1937, Physic Professor John Vincent Atanasoff  and Engineering Alumnus Cliffor Berry both from Iowa State University began working to develop the first electronic digital computer. They built the computer in their university from 1937 to 1942. The computer is known as the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). It looked like nothing compared to today’s computers, since it weighs 750 pounds or 340 kilograms. It has numerous features such as rotating drums, which served as the memory, glowing vacuum tubes and a read/write system which records numbers by burning marks on a card. It was the size of a big desk, which looks like a big supercomputer.

The Original Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

It was the first machine to use a binary system of arithmetic, separate memory and computing functions, regenerative memory, parallel processing, electronic amplifiers, circuits for logica; addition and subtraction, clocked control of electronic operations, and a modular design. All features mentioned are still a part of today’s computers.

With the success of the ABC computer comes with the controversies it underwent as well.  After the death of Berry in 1963, J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, developers of the ENIAC machine at the University of Pennsylvania, were the first to patent the ABC. But it was later overturned U.S. District Judge Earl R. Larson in 1973 stating “Eckert and Mauchly did not themselves first invent the automatic electronic digital computer, but instead derived that subject matter from one Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff.”

Both Berry and Atanasoff were awarded by George Bush in November 13, 1990 with the National Medal Of Technology. Atanasoff later died in 1995. Books were later written about Atanasoff and Berry, and later, the ABC was replicated in April 2010.

 

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