UNDERSTANDING DIGITAL COMPUTERS {LEARN ELECTRONIC ARITHMETIC SPEED AND CONVENIENCE WHATS A COMPUTER? LEARN THE ANSWERS IN PRECISE, SIMPLE TERMS DISCOVER THE WIDE VERSATILITY OF COMPUTER MEMORIES BECOME FAMILIARIZED WITH NUMBER SYSTEMS ‘COMPUTER PROGRAMING = FROM ANALYSIS TO COMPLETE APPLICATIONS LEARN ABOUT BINARY Lost, HOW IT WoRKS ‘AND HOW 10 USE IrUnderstanding Digital Computers by Forrest M. Mims, Il Radio ShaekfARgT EDITION \Sopyant © 1978 by Rado Shack, » Tandy Corporation Company, Fo ‘Norm, Tous 7102 Pind inte Une Sates ot Ametcn, Al ahs reserved. production of use without express periein. of ator‘ ptr cone. many mont provid No par ‘aity te etumed ahveepect othe ate teintratonconaied| her Wlesvrygrocain has Saen tan inte peperaton 9th oot ta pucer ssumee no responslity ‘or sro or mina emer dry naony seme for sumagee rosutng nom we wa oe Intonation cortanes harePreface Several yoare ago the president of @ small electronics company, FL Edward Roberts. ssked'me fo write an operator manus for a not) {onpular hi i wae planning towel Eo eorvinosd me tat wring ‘anual would bean atelln! way To lean about computers. and he Should wren. Eas company was MITS, Ine. and the computer was the famous ALTAIR (TM) 8800, the machin tht Began the hobby eoriputer Working on tls Back has Been even mor of learning experince than tinting tee ALTAIR manual ee been nine busy months of searching {rough libvares, visting computer stores, attnding tho 7877 National {Computer Gonforones, eolecting Information ana’ photos trom cozens Sf sompanies and touring the fascinating 18M exhibit onthe history of cane nS rs 0 put In some tine Iearhing to program the ALTAIR 8800 and FMA migrocomputers and Radio Shacks TAS-0 personal compute. {ogeher'a'working computer based on PIP. the computer desorbed InGhaptor 8 {haa Inluded PIP Ina sores ol lectuon at UCLA's Sum ‘mor Student Rosearen Program, and nono ef the students cou tnd [ny bugs In the oes. Sl, te only way to make eure PIP-1 worked was to bulld a working ‘ode. A crash program recltod In ara’ nest of colored lies and Intogrates crite that's happily Rashing ie rows of lights at thie very ‘moment "hope you lear oe much trom ih Book ag | have. Don' fet ted down by the Grdor ofthe chapters, Tha book ls organized im auoh a way nat you ean begin anywhere you tke It you already know about number Systoma, for example, you can skip Chapter 3. Or youre up to date ‘oh ogie ciel you Gan mov» al the way up to Chapter & It things get {Wo techies dont shelve the Book ust move up (or back) to another ‘hapten You can alway come back to the Lough pats llr In any event | do suggest you begin by browsing through Chapter 4 Trek ts'a general baekgrourd eheptor witha iia history about cor ultra you might enjoy. Frem than on, you ean continue wih Chapter 2 ‘oF skp Upto Ghaptore 0 ena 10 te upto you ‘Thiele geoarning book with tots of checkpoints to messure your Progross. Try te cover allot am you can, They help you remember ey pons, etimulate your tirking and theyre great or reviewing chap: tore you might alteady know something aBout ‘Also, each chepter has reacing list you'l want fo keepin mind. Some. fealy goad desks and alles on computers are ited. ane vouil want {Shaves looe st some of ther Wearing comeing about computers, why not consider Personal compuing? Pick up a copy of Byte, Kiobeve, Interface Ago ot one of the cher hobby eomputer magazines. Stop B) ‘Toca! computer store. Visita computer cub ‘The possibtioe want to Sonedor some ming. Happy computing! ttuly ming expancing and you might even llegelevel coutees on Gomputere snd program Forrest M. Mima, [ABOUT THE AUTHOR Forrest Mine i the author of many Radio Shack project Books and 2 contbuting eller of Popular Eleovanios magazine. He lve with Mit ‘le and two children In Sen Maree, TexasCHAPTER 1 What I a Computer? ‘CHAPTER 2 Number Systems Tee tr 2 ey ore ee ‘ating Decimal to Bnan-—Binary- Coded Decinal—The Octal Sye- ‘tom—The Hexagacimal System—Conelusion a ‘CHAPTER 9 Binary Logie : {se~eiacronte Lage Crate GsteTne AND Creat—Tno OR Gregi koyooara into patterns of Gs ana te, Tis lets you communicate with a computer Using an assortment of oranary enghsh ores culea” =| computer Tanatags. (One ofthe most popular computer languages Is called BASIC. Anyone tan lear the asiesof BASIC less than helt an hour and be wating ‘imple programe witin an Nour Lets give It sy Imagine you're seated ot tho keyboard of @ computer that understands BASIC. The vigoo eoreon race EADY (Go ahead, ype & wor into the koyboar Basic lent 2 Now ove the Keyboard areal workout Fis, press fod CLEAR. Than try every eter nth alphabet THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG Fil he entice screen with numbers, later, words and i you ‘rant tol Make an eror? No problem. You can elacronlcally erase By Fiting the key marked Than retype the correct snaactr. mark this page. We're going to uncover some interesting facts sbout ‘iro wo got the computor rant after te next cheexpont cHecKPOINT 1. What's the fs thing hat happens ater you type ‘any character, into 8 computer keyboard? 2. Tie Some ofthe BASIC nsvuctlons we've covered so far. character, ANSWERS: 1. converted into a binary number, a sting of 0s and 1: 2. PRINT, RUN, INPUT, REM, LET and END. Well caver those ana mmote BASIC Instructions In more deta In Chapter 1a HOW IT ALL BEGAN For thousands of yeas poope have made all kinds of gadgets to help ‘thom count and do srmeti The moet famous number machine fae zou. But finger counting, slohed sticks ned singe and pebbles wore in ue long beloe the abacus was inventea Incigentaly, most people think the abacus isa prety primitive number ‘machine. Not se. On November 11,1946, Mr. Kioshl Matsuzak of tro “paneae Postal Atminstraon and his trusty abacus won four of ve lafees of competion ina contest against the lalest electri eating iachine! Even ns age of post eal, ios fo Japan en Loa of other mecharical calculating nstrumonts helped pave the way forthe digial computer Mere are 8 few of thom (atong ny important dates 1842, At he age of 19, Baise Pasoa,a Fone mathematician, Invented ‘Amachine ist assed ana susracied.H uses rating wheels wih tas {hat fumed the whee o the ll tenn of revolution Yor one fll evo luton ofthe wea! tothe vight Each whoel was mated wlth the digits ‘0 around its eroumierence, The edometer ea modem version of his Ingenious invention 1671, Gottriag wiholm Lebriz designed a machine that multiplied and vides because, he wea, itis unworthy of excelent mento loee hours Tike savon in th labor of cautation.-- (Have You ever felt hat way Just batore a big mata exam’ 1804, Chavis Babbage, an English mathemstician,aniipste the mod- fm cite computer when he Degen designing the realy advenced Sha complex Analyca Engine. Tha machine Included all the sections fh modern cigtal computer snd would have boon able to process aa. Vanees programe punched Ise paper cards. The machine Was 0 {ar tsheod of te tna t couldn't bo bul withthe tachnology ten avalable.‘THE FIRST ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS ‘The fist arg scale itl computer wa the Mark Atleast at's what moat Booka sbout computers aay ‘Actual 2 German eli engineering student who, ike Pascal and Leib- ‘il, wae fe up with warking ut fg matheratel calculations oy end ‘cane up withthe beaic ie for ho word's frst electrnte ig com bute n'1038, Konrad Zuse wan ha name, and by 1941 he dosrgned ond bul ne 23.8 aga computer that uses vlaye fo perorm esleuations, Now that wove eat the record straight, let's return to the Mark. JBM Bult itor Harvard Unversity during World Vier and twas Used from ‘844 (to yoar I wos born) unl 1859, 'BM called the Mark | the Automatic Sequence Controlled Caleulator, was an electromechantel computer since It used gears snd relays, ‘ot vacuum iuboe That meahe R wes s-l--o-w by todays sanseies Itrequired 0.3 socona to asa or ubtact@ seconds Ya muloly and 114 seconds to cvde, ust fing the sie of an angie tooe 9 ful min And te Wark | was as big ag twas slow: St fet long, 8 feat hgh sha ‘weighed tone! ‘The fst alkelectonic dita computer was the ENIAG om Electron Numecal integrator ana Comput). wes butt the Univeral ct Pennsyivania between 7048 and 1048 ENIAC was a number crunching monster the biggest electronic oon raption ots tne. A tom the ste ofa smal Rouse was nesded fo Pld {ts panels of hunareds of contol itches ang irout eabnets conta Ing’more than 16000 vacuum tuses all of which weighed In e's ty 30 tons! ENIAC proved thst super complicated olectronic computers would work “That was big news Beck in To46 when one skeptic Claimed the furs rate of ENIAC’ tubes would beso high that fincing and placing dec tive tubes would take 24 noura a dayt Fortunately for ENIAC fond