Under the Hood By Alex Barajas

Places to Save Files Your student drive. Burn on a CD. Flash Drive. Your hard drive. Floppy Disk

Software System Software – Refers to files and programs that make up your computer’s operating system. The system files include libraries of functions, system services, drivers for printers, and other hardware. Application software – An application or application program, is a software program that runs on your computer. Web browsers, email programs, word processors, games, and utilities are all applications. Data Software – A term used to describe a software that is used to manage a database.

Hardware Motherboard - One of the major functions of a motherboard is to act as the "hub" to which other computer devices connect. It has several interfaces for necessary components and numerous microchips that control computer startup. Numerous chips and components are physically installed onto a board. CPU – Abbreviation for Central Processing Unit. The CPU is the brains of the computer. In terms of computing power the CPU is the most important element of the computer system. RAM – Random Access Memory provides space for your computer to read and write data to be accessed by the CPU. When people refer to the computer’s memory, they usually are talking about RAM. Power Supply Unit – Is the component that supplies power to a computer. The power supply then pulls the required amount of electricity and converts the AC current to DC current. It also regulates the voltage to eliminate spikes and surges common in most electrical systems. GPU – The graphics processing unit is primarily used for 3D applications. It is a single chip that creates lighting effects and transforms objects every time a 3D scene is drawn.

Hardware (continued) Expansion Cards - The expansion card (also expansion board, adapter card or accessory card) in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard or backplane to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus. Computer tower - is the case that contains most of the components of a computer. Optical Disk Drive – Uses laser lights as a part of a process of reading and writing data to an Optical Disk. Keyboard – A typewriter style device, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches. Mouse – A mouse is used as a pointing device that functions by detecting two dimensional motion relative to its surface.

History and Timeline 1822: Charles Babbage devised the first mechanical computer. 1930 – 1960: Desktop mechanical calculators were built during the 1930s. During the 1950s and the '60s, electronic desktop calculators came up. Analog computational technologies predominated this period. 1940 – 1960: This span of time witnessed the emergence of the digital computing technology. Zuse Z3, ENIAC and EDSAC were some of the early digital computers. 1972: This year witnessed the creation of 8080 microprocessors by Intel. 1975: Altair came up with the first portable computer. The foundation of the present-day relationship between portability and computing was laid way back in 1975! Tandem computers, the first computers with online transaction processing capacities were born during this period. 1979: More than half a million computers were in use in the United States. This number crossed 10 million by 1983. 1982: Intel announced the 80286 processor. 1985: Intel introduced the 80386 processor that consists of a 16MHz processor. 1990: The World Wide Web was born. Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, developed HTML. He came up with specifications such as URL and HTTP. He based the World Wide Web on enquiry-based system that used hypertext and enabled people to collaborate over a network. His first web server and browser became available to the public. Now: The development of newer versions of computer systems continues.

Measurements Byte (B) kilobyte (KB) megabyte (MB) gigabyte (GB) Terabyte (TB) Petabyte (PB) Exabyte (EB) Zettabyte (ZB) Yottabyte (YB) RAM

First PC The IBM 610 Auto-Point Computer was designed in the portholed attic of Watson lab at Columbia university by John Lentz between 1948 and 1954 as the Personal Automatic Computer and announced by IBM as the 610 Auto-Point in 1957

First Laptop The laptop was invented by Adam Osborne in 1981. It was called 'Osborne 1' and cost $1,795. It came bundled with $1,500 worth of programs. It had a tiny computer screen built into it. It was invented by Osborne Computers.

Viruses Virus - A computer virus is a a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. Worm – A malicious program that make copies of themselves over and over, on the local drive, network, email, or Internet. In other words, the sole purpose of a worm is to reproduce, unlike a virus which attempts to infect, i.e. embed its code into, other files. Trojan Horse - A Trojan Horse is an email virus usually released by an email attachment. If opened, it will scour your hard drive for any personal and financial information such as your social security, account, and PIN numbers. Once it has collected your info, it is sent to a thief’s database.

Major Companies Dell – Dell was founded in Austin, Texas in 1984 by Michael Dell. This computer technology corporation is the third largest PC vendor after HP and Lenovo Apple – Founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Apple sells consumer electronics, computer electronics, and personal computers. Their best known Products are the iPhone/iPod, the iPad, and the Macintosh. IBM – Ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology, IBM sells computer software, and hardware, and was founded in 1911 by Charles Ranlett Flint. Hewlett-Packard – Is an American software and hardware corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1939 by Bill Hewlett, and David Packard. Acer – Is a Taiwanese hardware and electronics corporation founded 1976 by Stan Shih.

Bibliography http://www.buzzle.com/articles/computer-history-full-timeline.html http://www.techterms.com/definition/systemsoftware http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-motherboard.htm# http://ipl2.org http://www.info.eb.com

Ideas/Computers in the future I think that most of the major computer corporations that are around now, will be around like 20 years from now, but with more advanced technology. They will probably make laptops more thinner and lighter, desktop computers more smaller.

The End!