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Working in Mars Mission Control, JPL

Ronald Mak

Department of Computer Science
Fall Semester 2011

Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays
4:30 – 5:45 pm
Office location: MacQuarrie Hall, room 413
E-mail: ron.mak@sjsu.edu
Website: www.apropos-logic.com
Mission Control, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
NASA Mars Exploration Rover Mission

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CS 185C History of Computing


Section 1: MW 6:00-7:15 pm MacQuarrie Hall 225

Work with computing pioneers


Students enrolled in this class will have the rare and unique opportunity to work with computing pioneers. The following tables list pioneers who have already agreed to be project advisors or to give guest lectures (or both). These lists are in alphabetical order and subject to change, and specific dates for the guest lectures and their topics are to be announced.

Guest Lecturer Possible Topics
Allan Acorn Co-founder of Atari, creator of Pong, developed the MPEG standard and Apple Quicktime; the early history of video games
Dennis Allison The People's Computer Company and the early history of personal computing
Gordon Bell Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)
Computer Structures textbook
Don Chamberlin Co-inventor of SQL, System R, and XQuery
Evolution of information storage and database systems
Edward Feigenbaum History of artificial intelligence (AI)
Robert Garner RISC architectures and Sun SPARC; Xerox Star
Shomit Ghose Contributions of venture capital to Silicon Valley
James Gosling Java programming language
Dan Greiner Systems architecture from the IBM System/360 to the IBM System Z
Alan Kay Object-oriented programming, graphical user interfaces, Dynabook
Stephen Kwan Information technology (IT), business data processing, service science
Ike Nassi SAP (global enterprise software company)
Randall Neff Early Hewlett-Packard calculators
Robert "Bob" Patrick Mainframe systems software, systems analysis
Taxonomy of application systems
David Pease Instructor of the History of Computing class at U.C. Santa Cruz
Mark Seaman Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS), UNIVAC CP-642B
CMS-2Q programming language (U.S. Navy)
Steve "Woz" Wozniak Co-founder of Apple Computer

Project Advisor Possible Topics
Michael Albaugh IBM 1401, 1440, 1620, 1130; CDC 6600; UNIVAC SS 90; Atari
Dennis Allison (see Guest Lecturer table above)
Gordon Bell (see Guest Lecturer table above)
Grady Booch Unified Modeling Language (UML)
Software engineering tools and methodologies
Peter Capek Evolution of hardware sytems and software applications
Evolution and standards of floating point, storage, I/O control systems, virtual machines, programming languages
Ward Cunningham Techniques for displaying old computer programs in the most comprehensible way on the Web
Rick Dill Active for 50 years in computer technology and management from processes to chips to displays to computer applications
John Dobyns Management, economics, methods, etc. of software product development
James Gosling (see Guest Lecturer table above)
Randall Hansen Techniques for displaying old computer programs in the most comprehensible way on the Web
Alan Kay (see Guest Lecturer table above)
Christophe Lecuyer Zilog
Semiconductor technology
David Macklin IBM CPC, 650 RAMAC and SOAP, 1401, APL, FORTRAN
Jud McCarthy IBM PC & PC-XT
Robert "Bob" Patrick (see Guest Lecturer table above)
Bernard Peuto History of Zilog
History of computing at Rice University
John Pokoski Comparisons of computer architectures; machine instructions for variable-length data
Ken Ross Computer timesharing
Oscar Salmassy Experiences from the IBM 2311 Direct Access Storage Facility for the IBM System/360 to microprocessor development for the IBM ATM attachment
Dick Sites DEC Alpha, IBM Stretch, Burroughs B6700
Van Snyder FORTRAN and scientific computing
IBM 1401 Autocoder
Jim Warren West Coast Computer Faire
Intelligent Machines Journal (IMJ)
Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia
Computer privacy and freedom

Publish with the IEEE


The IEEE Global History Network will host your project reports from early drafts to final form. This will expose your works-in-progress to a worldwide network of exports who will be able to comment and offer research guidance. This is an opportunity to publish with a well-known and respected professional organization, and you will be able to link to your articles (such as from your resumes).

The Computer History Museum


To conduct your research, students enrolled in this class will have limited access to the historical archives of the Computer History Museum in Mt. View, which includes harware and software artifacts and original documentation. The museum's new Revolution exhibit will be a source of inpiration and project ideas.

There will be an unofficial field trip to the museum on Saturday, August 27, starting at 10:30 AM with free passes for students enrolled in this classs. Besides a self-guided tour of the exhibits, you can see a live demo of the Babbage Difference Engine and experience a fully restored 50-years-old IBM 1401 computer system in operation. (Of course, you can always visit the museum on your own anytime it's normally open to view the exhibits or to conduct research.)

Besides the Computer History Museum, you will have access to other historical repositories, many of which are on the Web.

Goals


How did computer architectures, software applications, and programming languages evolve to their present state? Why were certain paths taken but others abandoned throughout the history of computing? By learning the lessons of how past architects and designers overcame the technological, economic, and societal constraints of their day, we can become better architects and designers in our present day.

You will work in small project teams to research the history of computing. Based on the team members' interests and with the instructor's consent, each team will devise a project that investigates some historic hardware or software artifact or methodology, a legendary computing pioneer or company, or the evolving impact of computing on work and society. All projects will rely on original sources.

Example projects include

Each project team will present oral progress reports of its activities during the semester to the rest of the class. Final deliverables will be research results that can be submitted to the Computer History Museum or posted to websites devoted to computing history such as the IEEE Global History Network described above.

Prerequisites


At least one of the following:
CS 46B Introduction to Data Structures grade C- or better,
or equivalent knowledge of computer software
CS 47 Introduction to Computer Organization grade C- or better,
or equivalent knowledge of computer hardware
Instructor consent

Required books


A History of Modern Computing, 2nd edition
Paul E. Ceruzzi
The MIT Press, 2003
ISBN: 978-0262532037

Who am I?


As a Research Staff Member at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, I'm helping to solve the nation's obesity problem. Previously, I was a Senior Scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center, where I designed and led the development of the middleware for a key information management system for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. I was also the Enterprise Software Strategist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for a major laser-based fusion energy project, the National Ignition Facility (NIF), where I helped design and develop an enterprise system that acquired and managed the workflow of data generated by the laser firings.

I've written books on compiler writing, software engineering, and numerical computation. I find designing and developing software such as compilers and enterprise systems to be fun and challenging. So I'm the kind of geek nobody wants to talk to at parties. My one redeeming feature is that I have two cute cats.