PRINCIPLES OF INFO SYSTEMS/ MIDTERM 1

In storage devices, two common access methods are sequential access and random
access. Here’s how they work and how they differ:

1. Sequential Access

• How It Works: Data is accessed in a specific, ordered sequence. To retrieve data

stored at a particular location, you must go through all preceding data until you
reach the desired location.
• Example: Magnetic tape drives are classic examples, where data is read linearly
from one end of the tape to the other.
• Pros: Generally inexpensive and good for tasks that require processing large
datasets in order.
• Cons: Slow access times for data located far from the starting point, making it
inefficient for random data retrieval.

2. Random Access

• How It Works: Data can be accessed directly at any location without going through
other data sequentially. This allows for rapid access to data at any point in storage.
 • Example: Hard drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs) allow data retrieval from
any location without sequence constraints.
• Pros: Faster access time, ideal for applications requiring frequent and quick data
retrieval.
• Cons: Typically more costly, especially for large storage capacities, and may
involve more complex hardware.

Summary of Differences

Feature Sequential Access Random Access

Access Time Slow for distant data Fast for all locations
Common
Magnetic tape HDDs, SSDs
Device
Data logging, Databases, OS
Use Case
backups operations
Cost Generally lower Generally higher

Sequential access suits large, linear data handling, while random access fits applications
requiring quick, flexible data access across a storage device.
Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He is credited
as being one of the first to theorize that all intelligent behavior was the result of feedback
mechanisms, that could possibly be simulated by machines and was an important early step
towards the development of modern artificial intelligence. Wiener would be the man to give
modern meaning to the word ‘feedback’ through his invention of cybernetics (the study of
regulatory systems) which has since birthed revolutionary subfields such as artificial
intelligence, computer vision, robotics, neuroscience, and many more.
John von Neumann (1903-1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist,
computer scientist, engineer and polymath. Von Neumann was generally regarded as the
foremost mathematician of his time and said to be "the last representative of the great
mathematicians". He integrated pure and applied sciences. It is indeed supremely difficult to
effectively refute the claim that John von Neumann is likely the most intelligent person who has
ever lived. The Hungarian polymath had not only revolutionized several subfields of
mathematics and physics but also mad .More than anyone else, John von Neumann created the
future. He was an unparalleled genius, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century,
and he helped invent the world as we now know it... Colleagues who knew both von Neumann
and his colleague Albert Einstein said that von Neumann had by far the sharper mind, and yet
it’s astonishing, and sad, how few people have heard of him.
George Boole (1815–1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher and
logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's
College, Cork in Ireland. He worked in the fields of differential equations and algebraic logic,
and is best known as the author of The Laws of Thought (1854) which contains Boolean algebra.
When George Boole came onto the scene, the disciplines of logic and mathematics had
developed quite separately for more than 2000 years. And George Boole’s great achievement
was to show how to bring them together, through the concept of what’s now called Boolean
algebra. And in doing so he effectively created the field of mathematical logic, and set the stage
for the long series of developments that led for example to universal computation.

Donald Knuth (1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor

emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally
considered the Nobel Prize of computer science. Knuth has been called the "father of the
analysis of algorithms". He is the author of the multi-volume work The Art of Computer
Programming. Donald Knuth is a computer scientist who came of age with his field. During the
nascent years of computer programming in the middle of the last century, a candy company
ran a contest that summoned his talents as a 13-year-old. The contest asked kids to determine
how many words could be made from the letters of the candy’s name: Ziegler’s Giant Bar. It was
a well-defined problem with distinct pieces, just the kind he loved. ...

The contest officials had identified approximately 2,000 words they could expect, but Knuth
found more than 4,700. He was rewarded with a spot on television and chocolate for his entire
class. He would go on to win many more accolades, including the first ACM Grace Murray
Hopper Award, the National Medal of Science and the A.M. Turing Award.
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her
work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical
Engine. She is believed by some to be the first to recognise that the machine had applications
beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out
by such a machine. To some she is a great hero in the history of computing; to others an
overestimated minor figure. I’ve been curious for a long time what the real story is... But after
quite a bit of research—including going to see many original documents—I feel like I’ve finally
gotten to know Ada Lovelace, and gotten a grasp on her story.

...Ada seems to have understood with some clarity the traditional view of programming: that we
engineer programs to do things we know how to do. But she also notes that in actually putting
“the truths and the formulae of analysis” into a form amenable to the engine, “the nature of
many subjects in that science are necessarily thrown into new lights, and more profoundly
investigated.”

... Ada seems to have understood, though, that the “science of operations” implemented by the
engine would not only apply to traditional mathematical operations. For example, she notes
that if “the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony” were amenable
to abstract operations, then the engine could use them to “compose elaborate and scientific
pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent”. Not a bad level of understanding for
1843.
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher,
inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable
computer. Considered by some to be "father of the computer", Babbage is credited with
inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex electronic designs,
though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in Babbage's Analytical
Engine. The incredible world of computers was born some 150 years ago, with a clunky
machine dreamed up by a calculating genius named Charles Babbage... What he foresaw was a
primitive computer. As his biographer, Anthony Hyman, wrote, "Babbage worked by himself, far
ahead of contemporary thought. He had not only to elaborate the designs but to develop the
concepts, the engineering, and even the tools to make the parts. He . . . stands alone: the great
ancestral figure of computing."