Types of computer systems

Things we can do on the computer

2. Essentials of computer: parts of computer, functions of a PC output func.

Types of computer systems

4. Input devices: keyboard, mouse, voice input

5. Input devices: scanners, digital cameras, webcams

6. Output devices: printers (technical details, types of printers)

7. Output devices: display screens (CRT's and LCD's, big screens: plasma and projection TVs)

8. The processor: RAM and ROM, units of memory

9. Discs and drives: magnetic storage, optical storage, removable flash memory

10. Health and safety: the risks of using mobiles and in-car computers

11. Operating systems: types of software, the OS, the GUI

12. When did the first personal computer appear? How was it different from the computers that preceded it?

NASA bought at least ten Programma 101s and used them for the calculations for the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing. Then ABC used the Programma 101 to predict the presidential election of 1969, and the U.S. military used the machine to plan their operations in the Vietnam War. The Programma 101 was also used in schools, hospitals, government offices. This marked the beginning of the era of the personal computer.

In 1968, Hewlett-Packard was ordered to pay about $900,000 in royalties to Olivetti after their Hewlett-Packard 9100A was ruled to have copied some of the solutions adopted in the Programma 101, including the magnetic card, the architecture and other similar components.^[3]

The Soviet MIR series of computers was developed from 1965 to 1969 in a group headed by Victor Glushkov. It was designed as a relatively small-scale computer for use in engineering and scientific applications and contained a hardware implementation of a high-level programming language. Another innovative feature for that time was the user interface combining a keyboard with a monitor and light pen for correcting texts and drawing on screen.^[4]

In what was later to be called the Mother of All Demos, SRI researcher Douglas Engelbart in 1968 gave a preview of what would become the staples of daily working life in the 21st century - e-mail, hypertext, word processing, video conferencing and the mouse. The demonstration required technical support staff and a mainframe time-sharing computer that were far too costly for individual business use at the time.

By the early 1970s, people in academic or research institutions had the opportunity for single-person use of a computer system in interactive mode for extended durations, although these systems would still have been too expensive to be owned by a single person.

In 1973 the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed a portable computer prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the IBM PALM processor with a Philips compact cassette drive, small CRT and full function keyboard. SCAMP emulated an IBM 1130 minicomputer in order to run APL\1130.^[5] In 1973 APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP 9800 offered only BASIC. Because SCAMP was the first to emulate APL\1130 performance on a portable, single user computer, PC Magazine in 1983 designated SCAMP a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer".^[5][6] This seminal, single user portable computer now resides in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.. Successful demonstrations of the 1973 SCAMP prototype led to the IBM 5100 portable microcomputer launched in 1975 with the ability to be programmed in both APL and BASIC for engineers, analysts, statisticians and other business problem-solvers. In the late 1960s such a machine would have been nearly as large as two desks and would have weighed about half a ton.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1161