LECTURE’S NAME: MOHD SYAHMIL IZMI ABU ZAKI

2016

THE CATEGORY OF COMPUTER

LABUAN MATRICULATION COLLEGECOMPUTER SCIENCE ASSIGNMENT

(SC015)SEMESTER 1

2016/2017

Question Number: 4Title: The Category Of Computer

Lecturer’ Name: Mohd Syamil Izmi bin Abu ZakiDate: 22 August 2016

Cassandra Crystal MathewMS1615614110

(980630-12-5390)

Fatin Shakirah Binti IbrahimMS1615613053

(980505-12-6394)

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CONTENT NUMBER OF PAGES

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 DEFINITION OF

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

1.2 ADVANTAGES OF IT

1.3 DISADVANTAGES OF IT

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2.0 THE HISTORY OF

COMPUTER

2.1 DEFINITION OF COMPUTER

2.2 BRIEF HISTORY OF

COMPUTER

2.3 INFORMATION PROCESSING

CYCLE

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3.0 CATEGORY OF COMPUTER

3.1 CATEGORY OF COMPUTER

3.2 SUPERCOMPUTER

3.3 MAINFRAME

3.4 PERSONAL COMPUTER

3.5 MOBILE COMPUTER

3.6 MOBILE DEVICE

3.7 EMBEDDED COMPUTER

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4.0 TABLE OF COMPUTER

PHYSICAL SIZE

PROCESSING SPEED

MEMORY

STORAGE

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5.0 CONCLUSION 16

6.0 REFERENCES 17

INTRODUCTION

1.1 DEFINITION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

According to Oxford Fajar Book, information technology can be defined as application of

computer science to solve real-world problems. Technology refers to hardware and software to

process data and information.

Search Data Center says that information technology is the use of any computers, storage,

networking and other physical devices, infrastructure and processes to create, process, store,

secure and exchange all forms of electronic data.

Merriam Webster Dictionary defined information technology as the technology

involving the development, maintenance and use of computer systems, software and network for

the processing and distribution of data.

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1.2 ADVANTAGES OF IT

Information Technology(IT) benefits in business as in using technology to automate tasks. A

good example is a bakery which uses automated temperature censors to detect any drop of

increase in room temperature in a bakery. These censors will send information directly to the

operator and report any temperature change. This saves the bakery time and it also results into

quality products

Next, businesses use cloud hosting services to store and backup business data. Also it saves on

paper work and makes transfer and access of data remote. With services like ‘Dropbox.com’,

business owners can access their data are very important tools for a business, so it is very

essential to store them safely and also access them at any time of need

Finally, quick and effective communication is vital to any business anywhere in the world.

Information technology gives an entrepreneur or business the tools, like email, video

conferencing, SMS essential to communicate efficiently and effectively to business world and

gives your company the resources it needs to communicate quickly and effectively. Not only do

people connect faster with the help of information technology, but they are also able to identify

like-minded individuals and extend help while strengthening ties.

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1.3 DISADVANTAGES OF IT

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Firstly, the use of Information technology in business operations can save a lot of time during the

completion of daily task. All the paperwork can be process faster and all the financial transaction

can be automatically calculated. However, since the technology has improved and all the task

that should be performed by human employees are now carried out by computer system. In

conclusion, this leads to job elimination, as the job now are mostly done by the technology.

After that, Information technology (IT) can lead to time wastage while doing unproductive

activities. For example, gamers usually take a long time sitting in front of the computer without

realizing the time they have used. Though using a computer as a mean of entertainment or

releasing tension is a good idea but staying glued over it for several hours is not a good thing at

all as it simply leads to wastage of time which could have been used for some other productive

works. The person will be having a problem to solve all their work if this is continuously happen.

Lastly, health problem is also one of the disadvantages of using Information technology (IT).

When we are using the computer, we tend to forget to eat and end up skipping meals. Our mind

loses the track of time for the important things such as eating. Related to this, skipping meal are

obviously unhealthy as our body needs energy to keep us active and functioning properly.

Besides of skipping meals, sitting for a long time also lead to poor posture that cause body-ache.

The poor of alignment of neck, head and shoulder that causes pain may have harmful everlasting

effect on our body.

2.1 DEFINITION OF COMPUTER

Based on Cambridge Dictionary, computer is an electronic machine that is used for storing, organizing and finding words, numbers and pictures for doing calculations and for controlling other machines.

Oxford Dictionaries defined computer as an electronic device which is capable of receiving information(data) in a particular form and of performing a sequence of operations in accordance with a predetermined but variable set of procedural instruction(program) to produce a result in the form of information or signal.

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Search Windows Server says that computer is a device that accept information (in the form of digitalized data) and manipulates it for some result based on a program or sequences of instruction on how the data is to be presented.

2.2 BRIEF HISTORY OF COMPUTER

The computer as we know it today had its beginning with a 19 th century English Mathematics professor named Charles Babbage. Computers can be classified into three generations. Each generation lasted for a certain period of time and each gave us either a new and improved computer or an improvement to the existing computer.

First generation: 1937-1946

In 1937, the first electronic digital computer was built by Dr John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. It was called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer(ABC). In 1943, an electronic computer named the Colossus was built for the military. Other developments continued until in 1946 the first general- purpose digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer(ENIAC) was built. It is said that this computer weighed 30 tons and had 18 000 vacuum tubes which was used for processing. When this computer was turned on for the first

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time lights dim in sections of Philadelphia. Computers of this generation could only perform single task and they had no operating system.

Second generation: 1947-1962

This generation of computers used transistors instead of vacuum tubes which were more reliable. In 1951, the first computer for commercial use was introduced to the public; the Universal Automatic Computer(UNIVAC 1). In 1953, the International Business Machine(IBM) 650 and 700 series computers made their mark in the computer world. During this generation of computers, over 100 computer programming languages were developed, computers had memory and operating systems. Storage media such as tape and disk were in use also were printers for output.

Third generation: 1963-present

The invention of integrated circuit brought us the third generation of computers. With this invention, computers became smaller, more powerful, more reliable and they are able to run many different programs at the same time. In 1980, Microsoft Disk Operating System(MS-Dos) was born and in 1981, IBM introduced the personal computer(PC) for home and office use. Three years later, Apple gave us the Macintosh computer with its icon driven interface and the 90s gave us Windows operating system.

As a result of the various improvements to the development of the computer we have seen the computer being used in all areas of life. It is very useful tool that will continue to experience new development as time passes.

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2.3 INFORMATION PROCESSING CYCLE

Process

Input Output

Storage

Input –the computer receives data input. Input includes text, images, videos and audio files.

Process – the computer performs operations on data which transforms the data into information. The steps are given by instructions in computer programs. The steps may contain mathematical operations or logic decisions.

Storage – the computer stores results and other data in memory. To keep for future use, the computer saves them on a magnetic or optical medium such as hard disk.

Output – the computer presents information or results of processed data in a form that users can understand or use. Information is presented through output devices and may be the results of calculations, computer decisions, texts, images, graphics, videos and audio playbacks.

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3.1 CATEGORY OF COMPUTER

Computers can be categorized as followings :

Supercomputer

Mainframe

Personal computer

Mobile computer

Mobile device

Embedded computer

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3.2 SUPERCOMPUTER

Supercomputer is a computer that performs at or near the currently highest operational

rate for computers. It is used for scientific and engineering applications that handle large

databases such as research, weather forecast, aeroplane design and physics simulations.

Supercomputer operates at extremely high speed and performs parallel processing. In

general, there are two parallel processing which are symmetric multiprocessing(SMP)

and massively parallel processing(MPP). Next, it uses a large amount of electricity and

does only one specific task. Moreover, supercomputer is very expensive.

The fastest supercomputer in the world is the Sunway TaihuLight which is located at the

National Supercomputing Center in Jiangsu, China. The speed is up to 93 petaflop/s with

10,649,600 computing cores. The second rank is the Tianhe-2(MilkyWay-2) located in

Guangzhou, China, with the speed of 33 petaflop/s. The third rank is the Titan-Cray XK7

located in the States with the speed of 17 petaflop/s.

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3.3 MAINFRAME

Mainframe is a large high-speed computer that handle hundreds or thousands of

connected users simultaneously. It has multiple cabinets called frames and it is taking up

the size of an air-cooled room.

Mainframe is designed for batch processing and record keeping which is used by banks,

colleges, airlines and goverments. Mainframes store tremendous amounts of data and

process billions of instructions per second. It can also recover from faults and resumes

operation. In addition, mainframe computers are not as expensive as supercomputers and

has a very high capacity of storage which is up until 4.6 Terabytes.

Examples of modern mainframes are IBM xSeries, Fujitsu ICL VME, Hitachi Z800,

Unisys ClearPath, Hewlett-Packard Nonstop and CDC6600.

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3.4 PERSONAL COMPUTER

Personal computer(PC) is a computer that can perform all of its input, processing, output

and storage activites by itself. A PC is a single-user computer system with moderately

powerful microprocessor. There are two types of PCs which are desktop computers and

workstations.

A PC is commonly used for general purpose computing that includes students using

computers to search for information and complete assignments, office workers using PC

to automate tasks and carry out complex tasks or just casual users use PC for

entertainment and communication.

Example of PCs for desktop computers are Apple iMac 27” Retina 5K Display and Acer

Aspire Z3 while for workstations are Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, DEC and

IBM.

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3.5 MOBILE COMPUTER

Mobile computer is a portable personal computer that allows one to carry, access and

work when one is away from the desk. There are three types of mobile computer;

laptop( or notebook), netbook and tablet computer.

Laptop computers are flat, small and light for portability. As for netbook, it is slimmer

mobile computer designed to access internet applications. For tablet computer, it is a slim

mobile computer with a touch screen, circuitry and battery in a single device.

Examples of mobile computer for notebook isApple Macbook, for netbook is Acer

Chromebook C910-354Y and for tablet computer is Apple iPad Air 2 and Samsung

Galaxy Tab S2 8.

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3.6 MOBILE DEVICE

Mobile device is a computing device that is relatively small, light and minimalist which

are designed to be more portable than a mobile computer. Two types of mobile device are

Personal Digital Assistant(PDA) and smartphone.

PDA is used as a personal information manager, a portable media player and a web

client. Smartphone is a phone with internet access and other functionalities often found in

a PDA. Other common features of a mobile device may include digital camera, voice

recording, wireless internet and Bluetooth connectivity to other devices.

Examples of mobile device for PDA are Apple’s Siri and Cortana. As for smartphone, we

have Apple iPhone 6S and Samsung Galaxy A7.

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3.7 EMBEDDED COMPUTER

Embedded computer is a microcontroller residing inside another device in order to

control or to carry out a very specific task for that device automatically.

Microcontroller is small and light, allowing it to be embedded in devices easily. Next, it

is relatively cheaper than a computer. Also, microcontroller is self-contained which is a

single circuit that contains all computing modules and applications.

Examples of embedded computer are digital camera. Digital camera allows photos to be

stored digitally and edited using the camera’s built-in software. Next example is the on-

board diagnostic(OBD) systems which is designed to monitor the operation of motor

vehicles. Sensor and on-board computer provide early warning and reports of

malfunctions to help troubleshooting.

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4.0 TABLE OF COMPUTER

CATEGORIES PHYSICAL

SIZE

PROCESSING

SPEED

MEMORY STORAGE

SUPERCOMPUTER A big room of

connected

processors

Tens of

thousands of

processors at

clock speed 3.83

GHz, delivering

33.86

PetaFLOPS

A hundred over

thousand

Gigabytes

Extremely large

storage (3.1

Petabytes)

MAINFRAME Multiple racks,

each the size of

a fridge

Dozens of

processors

A few hundred

gigabytes (384

Gigabytes)

Very large and

addable storage

(4.6 Terabytes)

PERSONAL

COMPUTER

Fits on a desk Single to

multiple

processors (1.5-

2.5 GHz)

A few

Gigabytes (2-8

Gigabytes)

Large (500

Gigabytes)

MOBILE

COMPUTER

Size of

briefcase. Fits

on your lap or in

your hand

Single processor

(possibly

multicore)

A few

Gigabytes

Large

MOBILE

DEVICES

Fits in your

hand

Single processor

(possibly

multicore)

A few

Gigabytes

Moderate

storage with

optional cloud

storage

EMBEDDED

COMPUTER

Miniature and

hidden

Single processor

(possibly

multicore)

A few

Megabytes to

Gigabytes

Limited

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5.0 CONCLUSION

A study of computer is one of the field of science and technology that really needed in

our life nowadays. Information technology helps people to be more creative and high order

thinking. This is due to the development of science and technology nowadays. So, it is a very

important thing for us and our next generation to learn more and make an improvement in IT so

that they could increase the quality of IT in the future. However, when IT is misused by people,

it could also bring disadvantages for them. Therefore, it is our responsibilities in keeping our

knowledge in IT which should be used in a correct way instead of being the servant of the

machine.

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6.0 REFERENCE

Books :

Yew KwangHooi, Low Tang Jung 2016 . COMPUTER SCIENCE for

MATRICULATION SEMESTER 1 . 2ndEDITION .Selangor DarulEhsan .Oxford

FajarSdn. Bhd.

Yew KwangHooi, Low Tang Jung 2014 . COMPUTER SCIENCE for

MATRICULATION SEMESTER 1 . 1stEDITION . Selangor DarulEhsan .Oxford

FajarSdn. Bhd.

Websites :

http://people.bu.edu/baws/brief%20computer%20history.html

http://clas.mq.edu.au/speech/synthesis/history_computers/

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/supercomputer

http://www.merriam--webster.com/dictionary/information%20technology

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/definition/IT

http://searchwindowsserver.techtarget.com/definition/computer

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/computer

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/computer

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