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What do you really need to know about computers today?

Where are we in development?

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Video: Machine That Changed The World

Episode 1 Giant Brains

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Computers have become

pervasive important critical to the economy

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ENIAC

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ENIAC

50 feet

30 feet

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Kinds of Computers

Personal computer Handheld (PDA) Workstation Mainframe Supercomputer

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Personal computers

IBM, Dell, HP, Apple Macintosh Windows XP, MacOS single user cheap mass market software

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Notebooks

more expensive battery constraints docking stations same manufacturers same operating systems

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Handheld

PDA – personal digital assistant Palm, HP, RIM Blackberry Palm OS, Windows for Handheld application: addresses,

appointments, memo, wireless service with email, …

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Workstation

more computing power more expensive single-user but networked Sun, Silicon Graphics (SGI), IBM a UNIX operating system professional engineers, scientists,

animators used as server

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Main Frame

multi-user with terminals (timesharing) proprietary operating systems or Unix-like expensive refrigerator-size plus storage devices controlled environment: climate, secure,

UPS, with support staff banks, insurance, airline reservations,

UofC student records

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Supercomputer

very fast expensive clusters with parallel processing and

shared memory e.g. IBM, NEC, Cray research: milky way, DNA, oil

exploration, weather forecasting

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Supercomputer

Top 500 supercomputers in world IBM Blue Gene Supercomputing in Alberta

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The End