Computer Systems Fundamentals - Essay Example

Computer System Fundamentals Answer to Activity The 'first appearances' after the year 2000 are as follows Year:2000, Month: Jan 19] Transmeta launch their new 'Crusoe' chips. Designed for laptops these provide comparable performance to the mid-range Pentium II chips, but consume a tiny fraction of the power. This new competitor to Intel in the x86 market initially appeared exciting and promising. 2. [Year:2000, Month: Mar]Be Inc. released BeOS R5 for PowerPC and x86, which was the first release of BeOS for x86 to have a freely downloadable version which could be fully installed on a user's hard drive. 3. [Year:2000, Month: Mar 6]AMD released the Athlon 1 GHz. 4. [Year:2000, Month: Mar 8] Intel releases very limited supplies of the 1 GHz Pentium III chip. 5. [Year:2000, Month: Sept 6] RSA Security Inc. released their RSA algorithm into the public domain, in advance of the US patent (#4,405,829) expiring on the 20th Sept. of the same year. Following the relaxation of the US government restrictions earlier in the year (Jan. 14) this removed one of the last barriers to the world-wide distribution of much software based on cryptographic systems. It should be noted that the IDEA algorithm is still under patent and also that government restrictions still apply in some places. 6. [Year:2000, Month: Nov]Intel releases the Pentium IV. 7. [Year:2001, Month: Jan 4]Linux kernel version 2.4.0 released. 8. [Year:2001, Month: Oct 23]Apple Computer released the now famous iPod. 9. [Year:2002] Blue ray disc's first wave released.( Source: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/year=2002) 10. [Year:2003] AMD shipped its 64-bit based microprocessor line for desktop computers, Opteron and Athlon 64. 11. [Year:2004, Month: Apr 14]nVidia releases GeForce 6800, claiming it is the biggest leap in graphics technology the company ever made. Independent reviews show more than 100% increase in productivity compared with the fastest card on the market. Continuing the tradition, nVidia demonstrates Nalu, a mermaid with extremely realistic hair. A few weeks later nVidia's main rival ATi announces X800 with nearly the same level of performance and feature support. The card is showcased by the Ruby demo, delivering a smooth real-time rendering of what was previously in the exclusive realm of prerendered cinematics. 12. [Year:2003, Month: Nov 19] HD-DVD. 13. [Year:2004, Month: Nov 9] Mozilla Firefox 1.0 released, Microsoft Internet Explorer's biggest competitor since Netscape Navigator. 14. [Year:2005, Month: Jun 1] AMD starts shipping their first dual-core 64-bit desktop processor, the Athlon 64 X2. 15. [Year:2005, Month: Nov 22]Microsoft debuts the Xbox 360, their second-generation console with wireless controllers, integrated online gaming, surround-sound and high-definition graphics. 16. [Year:2006, Month: Jan 10] Apple Computer introduces the MacBook Pro, theirfirst Intel-based, dual-core mobile computer, as well as an Intel based iMac. Source for the above: (en.Wikipedia.org) Answer to Activity 2: 1. The costs, speed and size of memory have changed dramatically. The major ones are SD RAM, DDR and DDR2. The main memory trends: Source: See The memory timeline for DRAM is as follows: Source: See Memory speeds are written in different formats depending on the type of memory technology your computer uses. FPM and EDO speeds are written in nanoseconds (ns). SDRAM, DDR, and DDR2 speeds are written in megahertz (MHz) Here is a rough guide to relative memory speeds: Memory Speed Technology Speed Module Bandwidth SDR PC100 0.8 GB/sec SDR PC133 1.0 GB/sec DDR PC1600 1.6 GB/sec DDR PC2100 2.1 GB/sec DDR PC2700 2.7 GB/sec DDR PC3200 3.2 GB/sec DDR PC4000 4.0GB/sec DDR2 PC2-3200 3.2GB/sec DDR2 PC2-4200 4.2GB/sec DDR2 PC2-5300 5.3GB/sec DDR2 PC2-6400 6.4GB/sec Source: See http://www.crucial.com/crucial/pvtcontent /memorytype.aspmodel=&memtype=CHOOSE The costs of the memory and other details in the last seven years are as follows: Memory Costs and Capacity Memory Stick Pro Capacity Price(UK pounds) 256 MB 5.64 512 MB 12.31 1 GB 15.386 2 GB 28.72 Memory Stick Capacity Price(UK pounds) 256 MB 10.77 512 MB 13.84 1 GB 18.46 2 GB 29.23 Memory Stick Pro Duo Capacity Price(UK pounds) 256 MB 10.25 512 MB 10.25 1 GB 15.38 2 GB 21.54 4 GB 46.15 Compact Flash Capacity Price(UK pounds) 256 MB 6.67 512 MB 7.18 1 GB 7.69 2 GB 11.79 4 GB 21.54 8 GB 45.64 16 GB 302.59 Secured Digital Card Capacity Price(UK pounds) 256 MB 5.128 512 MB 5.128 1 GB 6.667 2 GB 9.23 4 GB 17.437 USB Capacity Price(UK pounds) 512 MB 6.15 1 GB 7.18 2 GB 10.257 4 GB 17.95 8 GB 38.465 16 GB 88.21 Source: DealRam.com (USD prices have been changed to UK pounds). The price mentioned is the marked price only. Shipping and handling may charge another 2-3 pounds. 2. Without replacing a computers CPU, processing speed can be enhanced in the following ways: i. Firstly, by adding up more memory chips, thereby creating more virtual memory, AMD chips (and perhaps the chips in Apple's Power Mac G5) tend to run faster than Intel's Pentium 4 family of desktop processors, Intel. (See: http://pcworld.about.com/news/May052004id115986.htm) ii. Secondly, use of accelerators such as Registry Mechanic (Windows Registry cleaner and optimizer), SpeedUpMyPc 3.0 (Speed Boost to Internet and Computer speed), RamRocket (RAM Booster - Memory optimizer and stabilizer), WinTasks 5 Pro (PC optimizer increases speed, stability and security). See 3. The circuit shows the following: i. It is a combinational circuit that forms the arithmetic sum of three input bits. ii. It consists of three inputs (A, B and Carry In) and two outputs (Sum and Carry Out). iii. The circuit is composed of 2 'XOR' gates, 2 'AND' gates and 1 'OR' gate. 4. The truth table for the diagram of an Full Adder is a follows: Truth Table - Full Adder A B Carry In Sum Carry Out 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 Answer to Activity 3: 1.The running costs of Inkjet printers are pretty less than the Laser printers. But in the long run lasers are cost effective and quality stuff to maintain. The costs of an Inkjet printer and Laser printer by the popular brands named Epson and HP are as follows: Inkjet and Laser Brand Inkjet Laser Epson 318.89 199 HP 39.99 213 Source: www.pcworld.co.uk 2. The table below shows the comparative analysis of the peripherals for transferring data: Data Transfer Peripherals Devices Cost Speed Operation Ease USB Low Mbps Too Easy IEEE 1394 Medium 400Mbps Not Easy SERIAL Low Gbps Easy PARALLEL Low Gbps Easy BLUETOOTH High 2.4 GHz Easy Source: howstuffworks.com (Norton) Acronyms used: Mbps-Mega Bits per second Gbps-Giga Bits Per second Although the prices are high for the blue tooth it offers high speed transfers and easy to operate. Answer to Activity 4: 1. The features of C++ are as follows: a. It boasts object oriented programming which is segmented, easy to work with, and doesn't require very many lines of code to perform simple tasks. b. C++ is perhaps one of the easiest computer languages to learn as much of the syntax is very straight-forward. The language is not to be underestimated, however, as it is still extremely flexible and functional in the workforce. c. It offers encapsulation and data abstraction and provides visibility to the data members and function. It helps a programmer to decide what needs to be seen by the user and what not. d. It implements inheritance in large scale to avoid reusability of code and give a real world view of the objects. e. It provides interfaces and templates for making codes easy to implement and facilitates wider scope of reusing prototypes. f. It has InterViews, A non-proprietary toolkit for graphic user interface programming in C++. The advantages of C++ are: a. Although C++ is a high-level language, it is very powerful in that it allows the programmer benefits otherwise only available in the assembly (low-level) language. For example, programmers have much control over memory management, as can be demonstrated with arrays and linked lists. b. Perhaps one of the most important advantages to C++, however, is its ability to work in cross-platform environments. This is because of an ANSI standard. In other words, C++ code can be used to develop programs for vast operating systems including MS-DOS, Windows, Macintosh, UNIX and Linux, to name just a few. Unfortunately, GUI (graphical user interface) development in C++ among operating systems varies greatly. Microsoft Visual C++, for example, allows for graphics in Windows. QT, meanwhile, can be used on UNIX-based machines. c. C++ is more compatible with new products for which only C++ bindings exist e.g. Corba, DOOCS and cdev. The disadvantages of C++ are: a. C++ is not available on OS9 yet (first foreseen date is September 1995), b. C++ with all its many concepts and possibilities has a steep learning curve, c. Extensive use of operator overloading, function overloading and virtual functions can very quickly make C++ totally unreadable, d. C++ executables are big ( 500 kilobytes on HP-UX) compared to OIC executables ( 150 kilobytes on HP-UX). The features of Java are: 1. Java is simple 2. Java is Distributed 3. Portability: Program once, Run anywhere (Platform Independence) 4. Java is Interpreted 5. Multimedia: Images, Sounds and Animation 6. The Virtual Machine: Java VM 7. Java is Robust 8. Java is Portable 9. Java is Multithreaded, capability for a program to perform several tasks simultaneously within a program. 10. Java is Architecture Neutral 11. Java is Dynamic (Schildt) The advantages of Java are as follows: 1. Low cost: The tools needed to build and test Java programs are available without charge 2. Type safe. 3. Network centric 4. Eliminated multiple inheritance 5. Java Servlets have revolutionized the use of Internet programming. The disadvantages of Java are as follows: 1. Although Java's ability for producing portable, architecturally neutral code is desirable, the method used to create this code is inefficient. As mentioned above, once Java code is compiled into byte code, an interpreter called a Java Virtual Machine, specifically designed for computer architecture, runs the program. 2. Does not support real-time programming. 3. No separation of specification from implementation. Java classes aren't divided into specification and implementation parts. Hosch feels that this is an important point for beginners and would like this distinction between specification and implementation to be supported by the syntactic structure of the language.'' Lacking such a separation, he would at least like to be able to write prototypes for methods, which Java doesn't allow except within an abstract class or interface. 4. No preconditions and postconditions. Hosch's introductory course emphasizes preconditions and postconditions, for which he would like language support. Java, like most languages, has no such support. (Among major languages, only Eiffel does.) 5. Visibility rules are baroque.'' Hosch decries the many types of visibility in Java. He also laments that Java's syntactic support for hierarchical packages doesn't carry any semantic significance. 6. No support for genericity. Hosch notes Java's lack of support for writing generic data structures and methods. As a substitute, he would accept type by association,'' such as Eiffel's anchored types. 7. No enumeration types. Java lacks enumeration types entirely, although they can be simulated by creating a series of named constants. 8. No local constants. In Java, variables that belong to a class can be made constant by declaring them to be final. Variables that are local to a method cannot be declared final, however. 9. Exceptions not caught within a method must be declared as thrown by that method (Bayross) References Bayross: Web enabled commercial application development Java 2.0. Crucial Aniversary: See Read More