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Computers (types)
● Microcomputer
● Minicomputer
● Personal computer (PC) (Desktop)
● Supercomputer: mainframe enterprise level
● Laptop
● Server: robust in terms of speed and memory
● Mobile
● Smartphone
● Tablet
Kilobyte to Zettabyte
● 1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte (or 1K)
● 1000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte (or 1 meg)
● 1000 megabytes = 1 gigabyte (or 1 gig)
● 1000 gigabytes = 1 terabyte
● 1000 terabytes = 1 petabyte
● 1000 petabytes = 1 exabyte
● 1000 exabytes = 1 zettabyte
● 1000 zettabytes = 1 yottabyte = 1024 bytes
● Kilobyte to Zettabyte
Computer Hardware
● Central processing unit (CPU): where the computer chip resides and is related to data
processing speed
● Memory: random access memory (RAM) is the working memory that is lost when the
computer is turned off.
● Auxiliary storage: active storage is where data is stored that is needed continuously. Archival
storage can refer to tape, hard disks, optical drives or cloud
Computer Software
● Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are a common way now for computers to react
with other programs or apps
● Operating systems provide a standardized way for software programs to perform tasks
Programming Languages for Computing
● MUMPS – used in many early medical applications, now renamed to M and with many
modern enhancements
● Unix and Web, but achieving larger-scale use, e.g., in machine learning applications
Database Systems
● Spreadsheets are considered flat files or one dimensional; unlike relational databases which
link tables together for more robust storage and queries
● Most common language to query the database is structured query language (SQL)
● There is a trend towards non-relational database systems, like No SQL for large “big data"
The Internet and World Wide Web
● The Internet is the largest and arguably most important large scale international network
● The TCP/IP stack allows for layering of different standards and technologies based on the
participants in an exchange and the payload being exchanged, The Internet began in the late
1960 as a network known as Advanced Research Projects Agency
● The World Wide Web (WWW) operates on top of the Internet and was created by Tim
Berners-Lee in 1989
● The WWW introduced the web browser, a software program that allows for connection to
web servers over the Internet using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
● Web pages are written using Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), an implementation of a
markup language, or method for defining formatting of text in a document, which has
become synonymous with the Web
● Standards exist for the exchange of data, such as HTTP; the format of data, such as HTML,
and the transport of data, such as TCP/IP
● In a TCP/IP network, each device (host) must have an Internet Protocol (IP) address. IP
addresses can be distributed among different tiers of lower layer networks, or
“sub-networks”
● It is useful to think of the Internet as comprised of two main components, protocols and
hardware
● Computers connect to the internet through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Bell
South or AT&T The Internet and World Wide Web