Assignment 2: Technology History and Information

Available Points: 10

Objectives:

Gain awareness of major contributors in the history of computing
Explore computer devices, measuring devices and numbering systems
Create web pages using xhtml coding
Transfer files from your PC to the PCC Web Server using FTP

Assignment Basics

This assignment covers html and xhtml coding, computer history and computer hardware.
You will create 2 simple web pages. One will be a computer history page, named xxcomphist.htm and the other will be a computer hardware page named comphard.htm. Your comphist.htm page will have a link to your comphard.htm page and comphard.htm will have a link back to comphist.htm.
You must create two XHTML documents for this assignment. Both should be created with a text editor such as Notepad in Windows.
PLEASE do not use Word for web page creation! -- it adds extra code that can be a nuisance for this assignment. Do not include any pictures in your web page unless you you know how to create the tags for them and know how to load your web page as well as your images to the student web server. If you include images and they do not display for the instructor, you will be docked points.
You need to have haveat least one of each of the following somewhere within your two pages :

A Centered H1 tag
A left-aligned H2 or H3 tag
A background color (can only have one)
Horizontal Rule
Table
A Link to an External Web Site
Either a 3 Line Item Unordered or Ordered List
Navigation links between the two assignment web pages
At least 3 different text formats: bold, italic, strong, emphasized, etc.
Text needs to be readable on the background color that you have chosen

I. Page One: Computer History -- 5 points.

1. Save this page as: xxcomphist.htm but replace the "xx" with your initials.
There are 24 people associated with computer technology below. Research 10 of these people and for each, list their birth (and death) years and list one of their major contributions to computing (not everything they did!).

Charles Babbage
Grace Hopper
George Boole
Jean E. Sammet
Claude Shannon
Ida Rhodes
Alan Turing
Ada Lovelace
John von Neumann
Kay McNulty MauchlyAntonelli
Doug Engelbart
Mina Rees
Tommy Flowers
Donald Knuth
Sandra Kurtzig
Steve Jobs
Carly Fiorina
Seymour Cray
Edith Clarke
Tim Berners-Lee
Evelyn Boyd Granville
Linus Torvalds
Rosa Peter
Bill Gates
Meg Whitman
Richard Stallman

Make reference as to where you obtained your information.
Save this page as: xxcomphist.htm, but replace the "xx" with your initials.
Make sure that it has a working link to your xxcomphard.htm page.

II. Computer Hardware Page -- 5 points

Name this page as: xxcomphard.htm, but replace the "xx" with your initials
For this page, you need to do at least ONE of the following (A, B, C or D):

A. Computer Device

Pick an input/output device and find the website that has the latest drivers for download.
Describe the device and its purpose, and the version, size and location of the driver. Adding an image is optional and not part of the assignment. If you do add an image, remember that your image also has to be transferred to your student folder on the web server. Also, if you do add an image or another object to any of your pages, make sure they are viewable by others -- if your instructor views your pages and finds broken links or broken images, points will be deducted.
Example-
Logitech MOMO Racing Force Feedback Wheel
Logitech MOMO Racing Wheel
Driver version 4.30 at
Driver for MOMO Racing Wheel

B. Computer Comparison Table

Find ads for 2 or 3 different computer systems and create a table or list that compares them. This should look something like:
Component / Computer 1 / Computer 2
CPU / P4 2.8GHz / P4 3.0 GHz
Memory / 256M / 512M
Hard Disk / 40G / 120G
DVD / No / RW
CD / RW / RW
Video Card / NVidia 5600 / ATI 9800
Monitor / 15" CRT / 17" LCD
Cost / $599 / $1599
The above is made-up. Please use real data and provide links to websites where you found the information.

C. Measuring Information

For each of these, be sure to include the information about the item as shown in my examples below.
1. Pick a music CD and note the total length in minutes and seconds. Assuming the standard 176,400 Bytes for each second, calculate the total storage used (in MegaBytes)
I did this for J.S.Bach Goldberg Variations - Andras Schiff. The total time is 72:15
The number of seconds is 72*60+15=4335. The total Bytes 4335*176,400=764,694,000 Bytes which is approximately 765M
2. Pick a novel (or other book without pictures) of your choice, and calculate the storage requirements..
I did Neal Stephenson's classic 1992 cyberfiction book "Snow Crash" in the paperback I have, has 468 pages, each of which has about 40 lines of text, and each line has about 50 characters. Assuming ASCII code so one character is one Byte, this is 468*40*50 = 936,000 Bytes = 936KB or just a little less than 1M.
3. Go to The Daily WAV ( and download a quote of your choice. Open it in Windows Sound Recorder (to access, click your Windows Start button, select Programs, select Accessories, select Entertainment, then click on Sound Recorder) and check File Properties to see the length, data size and audio format. Include these with the quote.
I did "Look, Bullwinkle, a message in a bottle! -Fan mail from some flounder?" - [Rocket J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose (June Foray and Bill Scott) from The Bullwinkle Show ] and found
Length: 5.94 sec.
Data Size: 23760 Bytes
Audio Format: MPEG Layer-3 32 kBit/s, 16,000 Hz, Mon

D. Number Systems

For this step, you should fill in the table below to show the corresponding values; yes, you DO NEED to submit this information within a table. The first row has been completed for you.
Decimal / Binary
2005 / 11111010101
101111100001
1548333162
1111111111111111
Your current age in seconds**
**Approximately - Just do age in years * 365 days/year * 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour * 60 seconds/minute. For example, if you are 30 years old, the decimal number would be:
30 * 365/days/year * 24 hours/day * 60 minutes/hour * 60 seconds/minute =
30 * 365 * 24 * 60 * 60 = 946,080,000 seconds. You would want to convert this to binary and enter the results into your table.
Make sure that your xxcomphard.htm page has a link back to your xxcomphist.htm page.
Save this page as: xxcomphard.htm, but replace the "xx" with your initials.

Assignment 2 Example -- the following shows an image of what your two web pages might look like.

Submitting Assignment 2

Transfer your two web pages, xxcomphist.htm, and xxcomphard.htm, and any images (animated GIFs, SWF, etc) to your Assn2 folder on the sws.pcc.edu student server. If these files are not in your Assn2 folder which is a sub-folder of your Private folder which is a sub-folder of your student-named folder on the student server, 2 points will be deducted.

For information and tutorials on transferring your web pages to your student folder on the PCC web server, click Creating a Web Page and Transferring Them to a Web Server.
After your transfer your files to your Assn2 folder, it should look something like this:

This is a FileZilla screen shot. Note that the 2 files that you transferred are in your Assn2 folder which is a sub-folder of your Private folder which is a sub-folder of your student-named folder. You know this because the path in the Remote site field shows "your student named folder/Private/Assn2". If something else shows at the end of your path in the Remote site field, then you are in the wrong folder and should not transfer your files to it.Click the little that appears at the top of the file list to go back one level and make your "student named folder/Private/Assn2" the active one. Then re-transfer your files to this folder.

Assignment 2: Technology History and Information