Ada is astructured,statically typed,imperative, andobject-orientedhigh-level programming language, inspired byPascal and other languages. It has built-in language support fordesign by contract (DbC), extremelystrong typing, explicit concurrency, tasks, synchronousmessage passing, protectedobjects, andnon-determinism. Ada improves code safety and maintainability by using thecompiler to find errors in favor ofruntime errors. Ada is aninternationaltechnical standard, jointly defined by theInternational Organization for Standardization (ISO), and theInternational Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). As of May 2023^[update], the standard, ISO/IEC 8652:2023, is called Ada 2022 informally.

Ada was originally designed by a team led by Frenchcomputer scientistJean Ichbiah ofHoneywell under contract to theUnited States Department of Defense (DoD) from 1977 to 1983 to supersede over 450 programming languages then used by the DoD. Ada was named afterAda Lovelace (1815–1852), who has been credited as the first computer programmer. (Full article...)

Inmathematics andcomputer science, analgorithm (/ˈælɡərɪðəm/^ⓘ) is a finite sequence ofmathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specificproblems or to perform acomputation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performingcalculations anddata processing. More advanced algorithms can useconditionals to divert the code execution through various routes (referred to asautomated decision-making) and deduce validinferences (referred to asautomated reasoning).

In contrast, aheuristic is an approach to solving problems without well-defined correct or optimal results. For example, although social mediarecommender systems are commonly called "algorithms", they actually rely on heuristics as there is no truly "correct" recommendation.

As aneffective method, an algorithm can be expressed within a finite amount of space and time and in a well-definedformal language for calculating afunction. Starting from an initial state and initial input (perhapsempty), the instructions describe a computation that, whenexecuted, proceeds through a finite number of well-defined successive states, eventually producing "output" and terminating at a final ending state. The transition from one state to the next is not necessarilydeterministic; some algorithms, known asrandomized algorithms, incorporate random input. (Full article...)

The history of computing in the Soviet Union began in the late 1940s, when the country began to develop itsSmall Electronic Calculating Machine (MESM) at theKiev Institute of Electrotechnology inFeofaniya. Initial ideological opposition tocybernetics in the Soviet Union was overcome by aKhrushchev era policy that encouraged computer production.

By the early 1970s, the uncoordinated work of competinggovernment ministries had left the Soviet computer industry in disarray. Due to lack of common standards for peripherals and lack of digital storage capacity the Soviet Union's technology significantly lagged behind the West's semiconductor industry. The Soviet government decided to abandon development of original computer designs and encouraged cloning of existing Western systems (e.g. the1801 CPU series was scrapped in favor of thePDP-11 ISA by the early 1980s).

Soviet industry was unable to mass-produce computers to acceptable quality standards and locally manufactured copies of Western hardware were unreliable. Aspersonal computers spread to industries and offices in the West, the Soviet Union's technological lag increased. (Full article...)

Theanalytical engine was a proposeddigitalmechanicalgeneral-purpose computer designed by English mathematician and computer pioneerCharles Babbage. It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage'sdifference engine, which was a design for a simpler mechanical calculator.

The analytical engine incorporated anarithmetic logic unit,control flow in the form ofconditional branching andloops, and integratedmemory, making it the first design for a general-purpose computer that could be described in modern terms asTuring-complete. In other words, the structure of the analytical engine was essentially the same as that which has dominated computer design in the electronic era. The analytical engine is one of the most successful achievements of Charles Babbage.

Babbage was never able to complete construction of any of his machines due to conflicts with his chief engineer and inadequate funding. It was not until 1941 thatKonrad Zuse built the first general-purpose computer,Z3, more than a century after Babbage had proposed the pioneering analytical engine in 1837. (Full article...)

Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American businessman, inventor, and investor best known for co-founding the technology companyApple Inc. Jobs was also the founder ofNeXT and chairman and majority shareholder ofPixar. He was a pioneer of thepersonal computer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with his early business partner and fellow Apple co-founderSteve Wozniak.

Jobs was born in San Francisco in 1955 and adopted shortly afterwards. He attendedReed College in 1972 before withdrawing that same year. In 1974, he traveled through India,seeking enlightenment before later studyingZen Buddhism. He and Wozniak co-founded Apple in 1976 to further develop and sell Wozniak'sApple I personal computer. Together, the duo gained fame and wealth a year later with production and sale of theApple II, one of the first highly successful mass-producedmicrocomputers.

Jobs saw the commercial potential of theXerox Alto in 1979, which wasmouse-driven and had agraphical user interface (GUI). This led to the development of the largely unsuccessfulApple Lisa in 1983, followed bythe breakthrough Macintosh in 1984, the first mass-produced computer with a GUI. The Macintosh launched thedesktop publishing industry in 1985 (for example, theAldus Pagemaker) with the addition of the AppleLaserWriter, the firstlaser printer to featurevector graphics andPostScript. (Full article...)

Java is ahigh-level,general-purpose,memory-safe,object-orientedprogramming language. It is intended to letprogrammerswrite once, run anywhere (WORA), meaning thatcompiled Java code can run on all platforms that support Java without the need to recompile. Java applications are typically compiled tobytecode that can run on anyJava virtual machine (JVM) regardless of the underlyingcomputer architecture. Thesyntax of Java is similar toC andC++, but has fewerlow-level facilities than either of them. The Java runtime provides dynamic capabilities (such asreflection and runtime code modification) that are typically not available in traditional compiled languages.

Java gained popularity shortly after its release, and has been a popular programming language since then. Java was the third most popular programming language in 2022^[update] according toGitHub. Although still widely popular, there has been a gradual decline in use of Java in recent years withother languages using JVM gaining popularity.

Java was designed byJames Gosling atSun Microsystems. It was released in May 1995 as a core component of Sun'sJava platform. The original andreference implementation Javacompilers, virtual machines, andclass libraries were released by Sun underproprietary licenses. As of May 2007, in compliance with the specifications of theJava Community Process, Sun hadrelicensed most of its Java technologies under theGPL-2.0-only license.Oracle, which bought Sun in 2010, offers its ownHotSpot Java Virtual Machine. However, the officialreference implementation is theOpenJDK JVM, which is open-source software used by most developers and is the default JVM for almost all Linux distributions. (Full article...)

C++ (/ˈsiːplʌsplʌs/, pronounced "C plus plus" and sometimes abbreviated asCPP orCXX) is ahigh-level,general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientistBjarne Stroustrup. First released in 1985 as an extension of theC programming language, addingobject-oriented (OOP) features, it has since expanded significantly over time adding more OOP and other features; as of 1997^[update]/C++98 standardization, C++ has addedfunctional features, in addition to facilities forlow-levelmemory manipulation for systems likemicrocomputers or to make operating systems likeLinux orWindows, and even later came features likegeneric (template) programming. C++ is usually implemented as acompiled language, and many vendors provideC++ compilers, including theFree Software Foundation,LLVM,Microsoft,Intel,Embarcadero,Oracle, andIBM.

C++ was designed withsystems programming andembedded, resource-constrained software and large systems in mind, withperformance, efficiency, and flexibility of use as its design highlights. C++ has also been found useful in many other contexts, with key strengths being software infrastructure and resource-constrained applications, includingdesktop applications,video games,servers (e.g.,e-commerce,web search, ordatabases), and performance-critical applications (e.g.,telephone switches orspace probes).

C++ is standardized by theInternational Organization for Standardization (ISO), with the latest standard version ratified and published by ISO in October 2024 asISO/IEC 14882:2024 (informally known asC++23). The C++ programming language was initially standardized in 1998 asISO/IEC 14882:1998, which was then amended by theC++03,C++11,C++14,C++17, andC++20 standards. The currentC++23 standard supersedes these with new features and an enlargedstandard library. Before the initial standardization in 1998, C++ was developed by Stroustrup atBell Labs since 1979 as an extension of the C language; he wanted an efficient and flexible language similar to C that also providedhigh-level features for program organization. Since 2012, C++ has been on a three-year release schedule withC++26 as the next planned standard. (Full article...)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability ofcomputational systems to perform tasks typically associated withhuman intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is afield of research incomputer science that develops and studies methods andsoftware that enable machines toperceive their environment and uselearning andintelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals.


High-profileapplications of AI include advancedweb search engines (e.g.,Google Search);recommendation systems (used byYouTube,Amazon, andNetflix);virtual assistants (e.g.,Google Assistant,Siri, andAlexa);autonomous vehicles (e.g.,Waymo);generative andcreative tools (e.g.,language models andAI art); andsuperhuman play and analysis instrategy games (e.g.,chess andGo). However, many AI applications are not perceived as AI: "A lot of cutting edge AI has filtered into general applications, often without being called AI because once something becomes useful enough and common enough it'snot labeled AI anymore."


Various subfields of AI research are centered around particular goals and the use of particular tools. The traditional goals of AI research include learning,reasoning,knowledge representation,planning,natural language processing,perception, and support forrobotics. To reach these goals, AI researchers have adapted and integrated a wide range of techniques, includingsearch andmathematical optimization,formal logic,artificial neural networks, and methods based onstatistics,operations research, andeconomics. AI also draws uponpsychology,linguistics,philosophy,neuroscience, and other fields. Some companies, such asOpenAI,Google DeepMind andMeta, aim to createartificial general intelligence (AGI)—AI that can complete virtually any cognitive task at least as well as a human. (Full article...)

C is ageneral-purpose programming language. It was created in the 1970s byDennis Ritchie and remains widely used and influential. By design, C exposes to theprogrammer relatively direct access to the features of the typicalCPU architecture; customized for the targetinstruction set. It has been and continues to be used to implementoperating systems (especiallykernels),device drivers, andprotocol stacks, but its use inapplication software has been decreasing. C is used on computers that range from the largestsupercomputers to the smallestmicrocontrollers andembedded systems.

A successor to the programming languageB, C was originally developed atBell Labs by Ritchie between 1972 and 1973 to construct utilities running onUnix. It was applied to re-implementing the kernel of the Unix operating system. During the 1980s, C gradually gained popularity. It has become one of the most widely usedprogramming languages, with Ccompilers available for practically all moderncomputer architectures andoperating systems. The bookThe C Programming Language, co-authored by the original language designer, served for many years as thede facto standard for the language. C has been standardized since 1989 by theAmerican National Standards Institute (ANSI) and, subsequently, jointly by theInternational Organization for Standardization (ISO) and theInternational Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

C is animperativeprocedural language, supportingstructured programming,lexical variable scope, andrecursion, with astatic type system. It was designed to becompiled to providelow-level access tomemory and language constructs that map efficiently tomachine instructions, all with minimalruntime support. Despite its low-level capabilities, the language was designed to encourage cross-platform programming. Astandards-compliant C program written withportability in mind can be compiled for a wide variety of computer platforms and operating systems with few changes to its source code. (Full article...)

Mya was anintelligent personal assistant under development byMotorola. Proposed features for the program included the ability to read emails and answer questions 24 hours a day. Mya was intended to work with an internet service Motorola was developing called Myosphere, and was planned to be a paid service that would eventually be used by other mobile carriers. A femalecomputer-generated character was created to represent Mya in advertising. While the quality of the character's animation was praised, it received criticism for being over sexualised.

Both the character and the program were announced to the public via an advertisement in March 2000, though the program was not ready for use at that time. Despite the announcement generating a considerable amount of attention, little was heard regarding the project in subsequent months. The program was never officially released nor cancelled, though the trademarks for both Myosphere and Mya were abandoned by Motorola in 2002. The name Mya was believed to be a play on the words 'Myassistant'. (Full article...)

Alinker orlink editor is acomputer program that combines intermediatesoftware build files such asobject andlibrary files into a singleexecutable file such as a program or library. A linker is often part of atoolchain that includes acompiler and/orassembler that generates intermediate files that the linker processes. The linker may be integrated with other toolchaintools such that the user does not interact with the linker directly.

A simpler version that writes itsoutput directly tomemory is called theloader, thoughloading is typically considered a separate process. (Full article...)

Linus Benedict Torvalds (/ˈliːnəsˈtɔːrvɔːldz/^ⓘLEE-nəsTOR-vawldz,Finland Swedish:[ˈliːnʉsˈtuːrvɑlds]^ⓘ; born 28 December 1969) is a Finnish software engineer who is the creator and lead developer of theLinux kernel. He also created thedistributed version control systemGit.

He was honored, along withShinya Yamanaka, with the 2012Millennium Technology Prize by theTechnology Academy Finland "in recognition of his creation of a newopen sourceoperating system forcomputers leading to the widely used Linuxkernel". He is also the recipient of the 2014IEEE Computer Society Computer Pioneer Award and the 2018IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award. (Full article...)

Incomputer science, aninterpreter is acomputer program that directlyexecutes instructions written in aprogramming orscripting language, without requiring them previously to have beencompiled into amachine language program. An interpreter generally uses one of the following strategies for program execution:

1. Parse thesource code and perform its behavior directly;
2. Translate source code into some efficientintermediate representation orobject code and immediately execute that;
3. Explicitly execute stored precompiledbytecode made by acompiler and matched with the interpreter'svirtual machine.

Early versions ofLisp programming language andminicomputer and microcomputer BASIC dialects would be examples of the first type.Perl,Raku,Python,MATLAB, andRuby are examples of the second, whileUCSD Pascal is an example of the third type. Source programs are compiled ahead of time and stored as machine independent code, which is thenlinked at run-time and executed by an interpreter and/or compiler (forJIT systems). Some systems, such asSmalltalk and contemporary versions ofBASIC andJava, may also combine two and three types. Interpreters of various types have also been constructed for many languages traditionally associated with compilation, such asAlgol,Fortran,Cobol,C andC++. (Full article...)

Apunched card (alsopunch card orpunched-card) is a stiff paper-based medium used to storedigital information via the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Developed over the 18th to 20th centuries, punched cards were widely used fordata processing, the control ofautomated machines, andcomputing. Early applications included controlling weaving looms and recording census data.

Punched cards were widely used in the 20th century, whereunit record machines, organized intodata processing systems, used punched cards fordata input, data output, anddata storage. TheIBM 12-row/80-column punched card format came to dominate the industry. Many earlydigital computers used punched cards as the primary medium for input of bothcomputer programs anddata. Punched cards were used for decades before being replaced by magnetic storage and terminals. Their influence persists in cultural references, standardized data layouts, and computing conventions such as 80-character line widths.

Data can be entered onto a punched card using akeypunch. (Full article...)

TheAntikythera mechanism (/ˌæntɪkɪˈθɪərə/AN-tik-ih-THEER-ə,US also/ˌæntaɪkɪˈ-/AN-ty-kih-) is anAncient Greek hand-poweredorrery (model of theSolar System). It is the oldest known example of ananalogue computer. It could be used to predictastronomical positions andeclipses decades in advance. It could also be used to track the four-year cycle of athletic games similar to anOlympiad, the cycle of theancient Olympic Games.

The artefact was among wreckage retrieved froma shipwreck off the coast of the Greek islandAntikythera in 1901. In 1902, during a visit to theNational Archaeological Museum in Athens, it was noticed by Greek politicianSpyridon Stais as containing agear, prompting the first study of the fragment by his cousin,Valerios Stais, the museum director. The device, housed in the remains of a wooden-framed case of (uncertain) overall size 34 cm × 18 cm × 9 cm (13.4 in × 7.1 in × 3.5 in), was found as one lump, later separated into three main fragments which are now divided into 82 separate fragments after conservation efforts. Four of these fragments contain gears, while inscriptions are found on many others. The largest gear is about 13 cm (5 in) in diameter and originally had 223 teeth. All these fragments of the mechanism are kept at theNational Archaeological Museum, Athens, along with reconstructions andreplicas, to demonstrate how it may have looked and worked.

In 2005, a team fromCardiff University led byMike Edmunds used computerX-raytomography and high resolution scanning to image inside fragments of the crust-encased mechanism and read the faintest inscriptions that once covered the outer casing. These scans suggest that the mechanism had 37 meshing bronze gears enabling it to follow the movements of the Moon and the Sun through the zodiac, to predict eclipses and to model theirregular orbit of the Moon, where the Moon's velocity is higher in itsperigee than in its apogee. This motion was studied in the 2nd century BC by astronomerHipparchus ofRhodes, and he may have been consulted in the machine's construction. There is speculation that a portion of the mechanism is missing and it calculated the positions of the fiveclassical planets. The inscriptions were further deciphered in 2016, revealing numbers connected with thesynodic cycles of Venus and Saturn. (Full article...)