| Chapter | Description | Associated Files | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Introduction |
Acrobat file: TopicsIntroRev.pdf | ||||
| 0. | Kenneth Iverson, APL and J |
Development of APL and J; A very short dialogue with J; A longer dialogue with J; Grocery shopping again; Summary; Rolling dice | Acrobat file: Topics00Rev.pdf
|
||
| 1. | Positional Number Systems |
Introduction; Additive systems; Multiplicative systems; Arithmetical tables; Positional systems; Guessing numbers; The binary clock; Down the rabbit-hole; The game of Nim; A genealogical problem; A closer look at multiplication | Acrobat file: Topics01Rev.pdf | ||
| 2. | John Napier and Logarithms |
Introduction; John Napier of Merchiston; Napier’s logarithms; Further development of logarithms; Napier’s rods; Slide rules | Acrobat file: Topics02Rev.pdf | ||
| 3. | Charles Babbage and his Engines |
Charles Babbage; The method of differences; The Difference Engine; A simulator for the Difference Engine; The Analytical Engine; Other Difference and Analytical Engines; Prime numbers and coffee tables | Acrobat file: Topics03Rev.pdf
|
||
| 4. | George Boole and Logical Design |
Aristotelian logic; George Boole; Boolean algebra; Truth tables; Binary addition | Acrobat file: Topics04Rev.pdf | ||
| 5. | Alan Turing and Computability |
Mathematical foundations; Early life and education; Bletchley Park; National Physical Laboratory and Manchester; Turing Machines; Computability; A play and a novel; A Turing machine simulator | Acrobat file: Topics05Rev.pdf |
||
| 6. | Early Computers |
Introduction; Electromechanical computers I. Konrad Zuse; Electomechanical computers II. Howard Aiken; Electromechanical computers III. The Bell Telephone computers; Electronic computers I. ENIAC and EDVAC; Electronic computers II. NPL, Manchester and FERUT; Electronic computers III. Cambridge and EDSAC; Nim-playing computers; A machine-language simulator | Acrobat file: Topics06Rev.pdf |
||
| 7. | FORTRAN and Some Other Languages |
Introduction; Before FORTRAN; FORTRAN; BASIC; ALGOL; Pascal; C, Java and Perl; MATLAB; Spreadsheets; Backus-Naur Form; Acknowledgements; Example programs for dice frequencies | Acrobat file: Topics07Rev.pdf | ||
| 8. | Some Overwhelming Numbers |
Introduction; Bubble sort; A couple of legends; Some problems from the real world; A few notes on cryptography; Public key encryption; P vs NP | Acrobat file: Topics08Rev.pdf | ||
Appendix. |
J4.06 Script File | Script file: tpcsrev.ijs | |||
References |
Acrobat file: TopicsRefRev.pdf |