• Personal Digital Assistant

• Power doubles every eighteen months
• This statement still holds true to today

• Smallest Computers
• Consists of Laptops, Desktops and PDA's
• PDA- Personal Digital Assistant

Business Computer Hardware

• Tangible or Physical aspect of a computer
• Examples: Circuit boards, chipsets, keyboards

Mainframe Computers

• Massive room sized computers that process and store information
• A multiuser computer system that meets the computing needs of a large organization

Midrange Computers

• Are less powerful and smaller in physical size
• Do many of the same things a mainframe computer does, simply on a smaller scale
• Small to medium sized businesses van leverage midrange computers in the exact same way large organizations leverage mainframes

• Smaller than mainframes and midrange computers
• Commonly referred to as simply computers/box
• Least powerful in terms of processing
• Come in three configurations: desktop, laptop, and PDA (personal digital assistant)

Application Software

• A choice you make, performs tasks you need (examples: word, powerpoint)
• Does not work without system software and or a operating system
• Programs that enable you to do something useful with the computer, such as writing or accounting (as opposed to utilities, which are programs that help you maintain the computer)

System Software

• All the software used to operate and maintain a computer system, including the operating system and utility programs
• Computer is made up of hardware and uses system software to make it work

• Often called a Platform 
• A platform for application software
• A collection of computer programs working together that manage the hardware and software of a computer so they work properly
• Performs jobs like: allocating memory, administrating input and output and file managment
• Popular Platforms in todays market are Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and UNIX

• Firmware: System Software
• Software that manages and controls the physical hardware of a computer so that application software can work 
• BIOS: Basic input output system: resides in a chip, a program that is always there and does not change
• Operating Systems: Windows Vista, MAC, Linux 2.0 and UNIX
  • 93% of boxes run on Windows

Open Source Software

• Meaning you are able to go into software and adjust how it runs
• LINUX is a operating system that is open source software

• Standardization

• Graphical User Interface

Any task a computer does is called:

• A process

• Running more than one process at a time

• Operating Systems coordinate a computers memory, which includes: cache, RAM (random access memory), RAM is considered primary storage, registers, and virtual memory.

• Basic input output system: resides in a chip, a program that is always there and does not change
• You DO NOT have to do anything to BIOS, they do everything themselves

• A collection of full-featured, standalone programs that usually share a common command structure and have similar interfaces 
• Often called Productivity Suite
  • Easiest and most basic way to share information: cut and paste
  • OLE: object linking and embedding
  • Embedding: A snapshot
  • Linking: is dynamic, both files stay up to date: Example, If you have a speadsheet in a word document and you go to excel and change the speadsheet it will automatically change on the word document as well.
  • PDF file:  portable document file
  • The most important part of a spreadseet is its ability to model financial information and perform "WHAT-IF" analysis.
  • DBMS: database managment system
  • Databases can consist of hundreds of related tables so they are referred to as Relational

• Connects everything and helps different components of the computer communicate with one another
• Large cicuit board containing the computer's central processing unit, support chips, random access memory, and expansion slots. Also called a main board

How is the speed of a microcomputer measured?

• A microcomputer speed is measured by clock rate which is the cycles per second that a computer can perform its most basic tasks
• Measured in Gigahertz

• (Reduced instruction set computer)
• RISC Architecture chips are designed for efficiency, and were the frist 64 bit processors

Everything in a computer is shown as:

• 1's and 0's

How many bits are in a Byte?

• There are 8 bits in a Byte

How many combinations of bits can you have in a Byte?

• You can have 250 combinations of bits in a Byte

What are bus lines?

• Bus lines are the pathways that transfer data and power between components inside of a computer and sometimes between computers

UNICODE

• When computers deal with languages that have special characters other than the english alphabet the computer uses a code scheme call UNICODE

ROM Chips

• (Read only memory)
• These chips are preprogrammed and require no user intervention and serve to perform specialized internal tasks like starting the computer

• Portable file document, unchangeable

• (Database managment system)
• Databases can consist of hundreds of related tables so they are referred to as relational

• Operating systems require very little human interaction

Diffusion

• Diffusion: the effect when a product takes over the market
• When something gains traction

What does exe. stand for?

• exe. stands for executable

• CPU cache: stores copies of information and data from the most regularly used parts.
• Main memory
• CPU cache helps decrease the time it takes to access memory

• PITS and LANDS:
  • Simply represent the binary system of a computer.
  • These are used to read cd's with lasers

• FAT: (File Allocation table)
  • It knows where everything is on a hard drive
  • Table of Contents

Defragmentation

• Defragmentation 
  • reorganizes the hard drive to put all the information on the inside circles of the hard drive and removes the "clutter" to optimize hard drive use

What are all operating systems made up of?

• All operating systems are made up of a hierarchy of directories (more commonly called Folders)
• All operating systems must have File management

• The INTERNET

• User Datagram Packets:
  • Breaks up files into packets but is able to use files without the entire file being completely rebuilt

How often does bandwidth increase?

• Bandwidth increases or doubles every ten months

• A computer can save information using Data Storage

What is a head crash?

• Read right head touches the platter on the hard drive

• Binary: something is made up of two parts.
• Everything is converted into 1's or 0's for the computer
• Negative charge: 0's
• Positive charge: 1's

• Storage Characteristics:
  • one of the most important aspects of data and information storage
  • examples: what sort of device is appropriate, how much can it hold, how long does it take to write to the device and how long does it take to read the device? How much information is capacity? How much information will it hold and access time?

Magnetic Tape

• Magnetic Tape:
  • Unlimited capacity, it is incredibly slow to back up information on a magnetic tape
  • Slowest storage media
  • Sequential: cheapest storage option

Internet Drive

• Internet Drive:
  • Unlimited Capacity
  • Slower than regular drives but could eventually pass up a hard drive
  • Reliability could be a problem, if you can't get to your internet drive you could be out of luck

• Mass Storage:
  • Tons and Tons of devices and their only purpose is to store information

• Archiving:
  • When data is no longer used on a daily basis and is stored electronically, but may need to be accessed at a future date

• Data backup
  • Data backup refers to making copies of data, or computer files that can be restored in the event that the original files are lost

American Standard Code for Information Interchange

• ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
• Coding scheme, there are 256 possible combinations of 8 bits to a byte

Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code

• EBCDIC: Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code
• More commonly larger computers like mainframes use a this coding scheme