WorksheetsElectronic Computing
Total questions: 22
Worksheet time: 11mins
Name
Class
Date
1.
The electrically-controlled mechanical switches used in room-sized computers were called ___
a)
mechanical relays
b)
transistors
c)
vacuum tubes
d)
dipole switches
2.
You can think of a relay like a water faucet. The control wire is like the ___
a)
spout
b)
flow of water
c)
faucet handle
d)
supply pipe
3.
A good relay in the 1940’s might be able to flick back and forth ___
a)
five times in a second
b)
fifty times in a second
c)
500 times in a second
d)
500 times in an hour
4.
For the Harvard Mark I, complex operations, like a trigonometric function, could take ___
a)
a few seconds
b)
six seconds
c)
15 seconds
d)
over a minute
5.
The Harvard Mark I had roughly 3500 relays. On average, one faulty relay would need replacing every ___
a)
hour
b)
day
c)
week
d)
month
6.
What type of "bug" was pulled from the Harvard Mark II in September 1947?
a)
a grasshopper
b)
a butterfly
c)
a housefly
d)
a moth
7.
She said, "From then on, when anything went wrong with a computer, we said it had bugs in it."
a)
Ava Lovelace
b)
Grace Hopper
c)
Clair Babbage
d)
Edith Clarke
8.
In 1904, English physicist John Ambrose Fleming developed the first ___
a)
mechanical relay
b)
vacuum tube
c)
transistor
d)
integrated circuit
9.
An electronic component that permits the one-way flow of current is called ___
a)
a transistor
b)
a diode
c)
a relay
d)
a switch
10.
In 1906, what did Lee de Forest add to the Fleming valve?
a)
a glass envelope
b)
a third “control” electrode
c)
a mechanical relay
d)
a dipole switch
11.
Triode vacuum tubes became the basis of radio and many other electronic devices for ___
a)
a decade
b)
three decades
c)
nearly a half-century
d)
nearly a century
12.
The first large-scale use of vacuum tubes for computing was ___
a)
the Harvard Rhode's 1
b)
the Colossus Mark 1
c)
the Rhode's ENIAC
d)
the Colossus Rhode's 1
13.
Who built an electro-mechanical machine, called the Bombe, at Bletchley Park in the UK?
a)
Tommy Flowers
b)
Lee de Forest
c)
John Ambrose Fleming
d)
Alan Turing
14.
ENIAC, the first general purpose, programmable, electronic computer, was completed in 1946 at ___
a)
Harvard University
b)
Bletchley Park, in the UK
c)
the University of Pennsylvania
d)
the University of Cambridge, in the UK
15.
How many ten-digit additions or subtractions could ENIAC perform per second?
a)
50
b)
500
c)
5,000
d)
50,000
16.
In 1947, what radical new electronic switch was built by Bell Laboratory scientists?
a)
the vacuum tube
b)
the relay
c)
the transistor
d)
the integrated circuit
17.
A material that can sometimes conduct electricity and other times resist it is called ___
a)
a semiconductor
b)
a relay
c)
a diode
d)
a ferrous metal
18.
Unlike vacuum tubes made of fragile glass, transistors were known as ___
a)
solid-glass components
b)
solid-state components
c)
liquid-state components
d)
thermionic components
19.
The IBM 608 was the first fully transistor-powered, commercial computer. The year was ___
a)
1932
b)
1945
c)
1957
d)
1975
20.
Completed in 1944, it was one of the largest electro-mechanical computers ever built.
a)
The US Air Force’s AN/FSQ-7 computer
b)
the Harvard Mark I
c)
ENIAC
d)
the IBM 608
21.
Colossus, the first programmable, electronic computer, contained ___
a)
16 megabytes of RAM
b)
160 electro-mechanical relays
c)
1,600 vacuum tubes
d)
16,000 transistors
22.
How was programming done on the Colossus Mark 1?
a)
by feeding in punched cards
b)
by plugging wires into plugboards
c)
by using a keyboard
d)
by pressing buttons and toggle switches
100 %
