Kitty Pryde-Barton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
throughaphase) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2019-09-23 08:56 pm
throughaphase) wrote in fandomhigh2019-09-23 08:56 pm
Entry tags:
Computer Science and Repair- Tuesday- 2nd period
Today the class was back in the Danger Shop, which was done up like a huge museum, with computers of all sizes behind glass displays.
Some of the displays were very large.
"Today we're going to start off with some history," Kitty began, leading them to the first display. "People have been computing forever, even back when all they had to use were their fingers. Then they came up with the abacus, and then there were years and years of trying to make the sort of computer we know and love, with no success until 1833. That's when Charles Babbage, considered the father of the modern computer, created an Analytical Machine. It could do math, even finding square roots, and used programming language not too unlike what we use now. But it ran into problems because it had to be built by hand, which caused problems in production, which led to the whole thing being scrapped. After that, people kept coming up with analog computers, a lot for military and seafaring purposes, and that ended in hybrid computers-" Say hello to the second display! "-which bridged the gap between the analog and digital age.
"The principle of the modern computer was invented by Alan Turing, who proposed that computers could do anything with algorithms. His hypothetical devices became known as Turing machines." Now they arrived at the third display. "They basically read data input onto it from a tape. Then World War II came along, and everyone was trying to come up with something. The first electromechanical computer came from German scientist Konrad Zuse, called the Z23, which ran on the Turing method. And then the first programmable, electronic, digital computer was known as the Colossus computers. It's ridiculously huge, and ran on vacuum tubes, and I'm going to let you guys all take a minute to check it out."
Because the Colossus was huge.
When she felt they'd had enough time, Kitty led them to the next one. "The first stored-program computer was called Baby, and was created in 1948, though the EDSAC, or Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, was more recognizable to us now. By the fifties they started figuring out how to better use the CPU, and in the sixties we got the Atlas Computer, known as the world's first supercomputer. Looks a little more familiar, right? After that, companies like IBM and Apple started getting things to where we are now. The Apple II came out in the late seventies, and while it couldn't do much of anything by today's standards, all of a sudden people could use computers for themselves. The game we played last week? You could play that on this computer, which should give you and idea of what they were like and how far we've come since then."
"Now, you've just had a long and probably boring lecture," Kitty said. "Next week you're going to try putting pieces of a computer together to build your own, so I want you to come up with a list of things you would want yours to do, or questions you need to ask in order to do that. You will probably not want it to be giant."
Some of the displays were very large.
"Today we're going to start off with some history," Kitty began, leading them to the first display. "People have been computing forever, even back when all they had to use were their fingers. Then they came up with the abacus, and then there were years and years of trying to make the sort of computer we know and love, with no success until 1833. That's when Charles Babbage, considered the father of the modern computer, created an Analytical Machine. It could do math, even finding square roots, and used programming language not too unlike what we use now. But it ran into problems because it had to be built by hand, which caused problems in production, which led to the whole thing being scrapped. After that, people kept coming up with analog computers, a lot for military and seafaring purposes, and that ended in hybrid computers-" Say hello to the second display! "-which bridged the gap between the analog and digital age.
"The principle of the modern computer was invented by Alan Turing, who proposed that computers could do anything with algorithms. His hypothetical devices became known as Turing machines." Now they arrived at the third display. "They basically read data input onto it from a tape. Then World War II came along, and everyone was trying to come up with something. The first electromechanical computer came from German scientist Konrad Zuse, called the Z23, which ran on the Turing method. And then the first programmable, electronic, digital computer was known as the Colossus computers. It's ridiculously huge, and ran on vacuum tubes, and I'm going to let you guys all take a minute to check it out."
Because the Colossus was huge.
When she felt they'd had enough time, Kitty led them to the next one. "The first stored-program computer was called Baby, and was created in 1948, though the EDSAC, or Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, was more recognizable to us now. By the fifties they started figuring out how to better use the CPU, and in the sixties we got the Atlas Computer, known as the world's first supercomputer. Looks a little more familiar, right? After that, companies like IBM and Apple started getting things to where we are now. The Apple II came out in the late seventies, and while it couldn't do much of anything by today's standards, all of a sudden people could use computers for themselves. The game we played last week? You could play that on this computer, which should give you and idea of what they were like and how far we've come since then."
"Now, you've just had a long and probably boring lecture," Kitty said. "Next week you're going to try putting pieces of a computer together to build your own, so I want you to come up with a list of things you would want yours to do, or questions you need to ask in order to do that. You will probably not want it to be giant."
Re: Figure out your computer
But that didn't mean he was going to make it easy for her, either.
"Hold on," he said, slipping his phone out of his pocket and aiming it at Nina as he pressed recard, "one more time, for the record, so I can have irrefutable evidence of the time Miss Figure-Every-Thing-Out Smarty-Pants had to come crawling to lowly old little me for help..."
Because he was a bit of a brat, too.
A bit.
Re: Figure out your computer
A beat.
"Also if you don't help me, I won't show you the Grand Adventures of Princess Ce'na and Sir Foomy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Which, okay, Googling would find those videos since they were… shockingly popular, but still.
Re: Figure out your computer
"You won't show me the what?" he asked, laughing, as he got what he needed and tucked his phone away.
Yes, they were supposed to be working on computers, but....this was important, too, they'd get to it!
Re: Figure out your computer
For one, then she'd have to eviscerate anyone who said anything about Vette's body.
"From this weekend," she said, giggling. "Vette was, like, still a bird, right????????????? But she was an amnesiac princess bird—Princess Ce'na—and Sir Foomy was her loyal knight and I… might have filmed it and put it online???????????????"
Might, Nina? Might? You were planning sequels!
Re: Figure out your computer
Let out a small, betrayed sound, his hand on his chest as if his heart had just been broken.
"And you didn't send me a link??" he gasped. "Then have the audacity to come asking for my help? Nina! RUDE!!!"
Re: Figure out your computer
Then she broke down giggling again as she fished out her phone to send him a link to the Youtube playlist.
"I'm, like, thinking of selling t-shirts," she confessed, "though that will depend on, like, if Vette turns into a bird soon enough to capitalize on her popularity………………"
Re: Figure out your computer
He didn't really care for it, and so he was also going to move on.
"What's Vette think of her newfound celebrity, hm?" he had to wonder, his own phone reappearing in his hand in eager anticipation to see this with his own two eyes.
Re: Figure out your computer
The first episode was titled 'Princess Ce'na and the Desert of Blankets' and detailed the awakening of Princess Ce'na in unfamiliar surroundings, without her memories, and her bumbling around as she looked for something, anything, to give her direction. It was, of course, narrated by Nina, who'd had… possibly… too much fun with it all but whose narration of Princess Ce'na's plight was on point.
"I don't know why she wouldn't believe it?????????? Tiny cute bird and jelly blob going on an adventure?????????????? People can't help but watch it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Re: Figure out your computer
"You definitely need to make t-shirts," he concluded. "And I am definitely watching the crap out of all of these as soon as we're done here, ohmygod."
Re: Figure out your computer
She tucked her phone away.
"But first, like, my computer………………"
If they had to…
"Do you think your boys would like a link??????????????????? I wasn't sure????????????? And they're like, almost definitely not following my Insta……………"
Unless they were…
Re: Figure out your computer
"You should definitely send it to Noct," he informed her. Ignis, he felt, was far too serious to appreciate it and it would be wasted on him, really, and Gladio, it was hard to tell, but he figured if Noct had it, then it would probably just spread from there. "He'll act all confused and pretend like he doesn't get it, but I know he'll like it."
He gave her a firm, confident sort of nod, and then a smirk. "But, like you said....like, your computer...."
Re: Figure out your computer
A hot dweeb, mind. And she thought he was pretty funny.
But, like, still. A dweeb.
"But, okay, like, for my computer, I don't actually have much experience with computers," she admitted, "like, I use my tablet for most of what I pull off," which was… really… impressive in its own right, "but for a computer, I want it to be better at basically everything??????????????"
Re: Figure out your computer
Sure, the guy was, like, his best friend ever, but the hero-worship would never quite go away.
"As for the computer," Prompto tilted his head a little thoughtfully,
as the computer illiterate mun thought about the best way to vague the crap out of this, "well, yeah, everyone's going to want it to be better at everything, but that's a little trickier said than done. So, if you were to say there was one thing in particular you wanted it to be the absolute best at, what would it be? And then we can kind of start from there."Re: Figure out your computer
Tucking her phone away to, like, focus kind of on the computer thing, she frowned.
"Well, like, I don't know that I need to focus on getting good graphics so much," she ventured,
as her equally computer illiterate mun thought about this. "But a lot of what I do has a ton of processes running at once????????????? So I guess maybe a focus on that??????????? Sometimes my tablet overheats????????????????"Re: Figure out your computer
And it was also nice the, hey, someone else could get to be the dweeby friend for a change, too.
"Yeah, okay," said Prompto with a nod, "that's a good start! Probably a lot of mememory and RAM and
blah blah blah computer jargon blah blah blah bleep blop blorpdefinitely some good fans. You know what you could do? You could even the kind that kind of lights up like I've got on mine, and you can do 'em pink and that'd be sweet as hell, Nina."Because, yes, Nina's future computer looking cool was just as important (IF NOT MORE SO) than it keeping cool.
Re: Figure out your computer
bleep blop blorp computer jargondown so she had a nice list of things she was going to need to build this monstrosity."They come in pink????????????????" she asked, intrigued. Because, sure, function was super important, but style was where it was at
and also easier to talk about. "Ohmygosh could I get, like, one of those backlit keyboards in pink too, do you think??????????????????"Re: Figure out your computer
and easier to talka boutthan motherboards and RAm and bleep blop blorp. "And, like, even if, for whatever reason, you couldn't?" Which, like, they could probably go on Amazon right now and order one, lickity-split. "I'd make one for you."Now he almost wished it wasn't so easy, because that would be way more fun and he totally needed more stuff to do to keep his mind of...you know...things.
Re: Figure out your computer
It would keep him out of trouble!
………………….. because he was clearly the Drama Diamond who needed to be kept out of trouble, given Nina's plans…
Re: Figure out your computer
...although, to be fair, when he did get himself into trouble? He was not messing around.
And his face broke out into a grin. "Of course I'm not busy," he said. "Definitely not too busy to help with that. I'd love to kick you out a sweet ass keyboard, Nina. That won't even be that hard!"
Re: Figure out your computer
Of basically anything.
... she was still better at landing on her feet than Yellow was though. So there!
"Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she said happily, clapping her hands together. "You're the greatest!!!!!!!!!!!!"
He. He, uh, did realize this was just going to snowball into making an entire computer for her, right? Right?