The aim of this primer is to understand the underlying abstractions that enable todays computing. Learning these concepts will form a solid base for programming interactive applications and devices. The ultimate goal is for the students to have a holistic knowledge of the technology they work with as Interaction Designers, as well as easing them into the topic of programming. Further to this, we hope to inspire the students by showing possible futures these technologies might enable.

Schedule: 

9:00 Personal Introductions from tutors (what we do and how we work with code) 

10:00 Max introduction lecture

11:00 Lecture "How computers Think". 

12:00 Lunch Break

13:00 Activity working with logic gates. 

16:00 Setting up processing and running first code.

17:00 Finish 

Further Reading

History

• Jacquard Loom
• Punchcard Computing
• US Census, IBM
• ENIAC
• ARM, Intel

Topics

• Engineering and material science developments (transistors, quartz crystals oscillators, Integrated Chips etc)
• Interface and HCI developments (punch cards to Douglas Engelbart etc)
• Ubiquitous Computing (Mark Weiser)
• Mechanical Computing (Abacus, Antikythera Mechanism, Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage)
• Electricity, Electronics & Transistor (Edison, Tesla)
• Xerox Parc
• Bell Labs (Telephone, Telegraph, UNIX, UI)
• The Internet (Tim Berners Lee)
• HCI: Inputs and Displays

Books

• The Nature of Code
• “How the body shapes the way we think” pfeifer and Bongard
• “Foundations of neural networks fuzzy systems and knowledge engineering” 
• The Big Switch - Nicolas Carr
• Computational Design Thinking: Computation Design Thinking
• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
• The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology

Films

• Enigma (Alen Turing Story)

Websites

• http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/computers/
• https://makingartstudios.itch.io/
• http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/digital/
• https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/digital-logic
• https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile