Microcomputer Systems  The ability to perform useful computation or data

processing assignments during a given period

 Usually called a personal computer or PC

Midrange Systems
Moore’s Law
 High-end network servers that handle large-scale processing
of business applications  A doubling in the number of transistors per integrated
circuit every 18 to 24 months
Mainframe Computer Systems
Peripheral
 Large, fast, powerful computer systems
 is a generic name for all input, output, and secondary
 Widely used as superservers
storage devices
Supercomputer Systems
Keyboard –
 Extremely powerful systems
 typewriter style device which uses buttons and keys.
 Uses parallel processing
Graphical User Interface (GUI) –
Input
 Icons, menus, windows, buttons, bars; Selected with
 Converts data into electronic form for entry into computer
pointing devices
system
Mouse –
Processing
 Most popular pointing device; Pressing mouse buttons
 Central Processing Unit (CPU)
initiates activity represented by the icon selected.
Output
Touch Screen
 Converts electronic information into human-intelligible
 Use computer by touching screen. Screen emits a grid of
form
infrared beams, sound waves, or electric current.
Storage
Recognizing speech patterns
Throughput
 Uses algorithms through acoustic and language modeling.

Acoustic modeling
  represents the relationship between linguistics units of Solid-State Drive
speech and audio signals.
 Uses integrated circuit assemblies to store data persistently.
Language modeling Uses flash memory.

 matches sounds with word sequences to help distinguish RAID Storage

between words that sound similar
 Disk arrays of hard disk drives.
Bit
 Combines from 6 to more than 100 small hard disk
 Short for binary digit, Smallest element of data drives into a single unit.

Byte Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)

 Group of eight bits, which operate as a single  One of the newest and fastest growing storage technologies

Direct or Random Access Quick Response Code

 Directly store and retrieve data  Type of barcode that contain a matrix of dots.

Sequential Access

 Data is stored and retrieved sequentially

Random Access Memory (RAM)

 Most widely used primary storage medium

Read-Only Memory (ROM)

 Permanent storage

Magnetic Disks

 Used for secondary storage

Flash Drives

 Sometimes referred to as a thumb drive