Lesson 1: Logic Circuits... The Basics

Welcome to the wonderful world of logic circuits

Logic circuits have come a long way since the days of the first electronic digital computers using vacuum tubes as logic gates in the 1940s.

Vacuum Tube

Vacuum tubes gave way to transistors in the 1950s.

Transistors

By the 1960s and 70s integrated circuits were making it possible to put an entire computer on a single chip.

Microcircuits

Logic circuits, or LCs, are complex combinations of a few simple logic gates, each of which electronically performs a logical operation.

In this tutorial we will begin an exploration of logic circuits, the fundamental building blocks of computers.

Exercises:

1. Using the web, choose one of the following people and create a presentation describing his or her role in the history of computing machines and logic circuits:
   • Wilhelm Schickard
   • Blaise Pascal
   • Gottfried Leibniz
   • Charles Babbage
   • Ada Lovelace
   • John Vincent Atanasoff
   • Alan Turing
   • William Shockley
   • John Bardeen
   • Walter Brattain
   • Jack Kilby
   • Robert Noyce

Congratulations, you have finished Lesson 1;

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