Personal Computers

Penetration Personal computers are now in close to four-fifths of American households It took telephones 85 years to get to this penetration rate

Brief History Herman Hollerith: 1890 –Working for the government to help count the census –Data was input to a “memory” –Processed by a central processing unit –Results were output in a special format

Brief History Big Computers ENIAC –Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer –Introduced at end of World War II UNIVAC appeared in 1950 IBM ruled the roost

Brief History Small Computers MITIS Altair 8800 in 1975 Apple II about 1977 –Was leader until early 1980s IBM Personal Computer 1981 –Used an Intel chip Clones followed…

800 Pound Gorilla Microsoft –Bill Gates drops out of school to start it –By % of PCs in the world have some version of Microsoft Windows on them

Key Components Vacuum tube Transistor 1947 –Begin the miniaturization of computers Integrated circuit 1958 –Transistors on one chip –CPU goes from size of building to size of a wafer Motherboard holds all the circuits

Computer Memory RAM –Random Access Memory –Active when computer is turned on Not permanent Storage Memory –“Book” or permanent memory Both measured in megabytes or gigabytes

Storage Memory Hard drive Floppy diskette Zip diskette Keydrives/Jumpdrives/Flashdrives Compact Discs (CDs) Digital Versatile or Digital Video (DVD)

Input Devices Keyboard Mouse Microphone Scanner Camera Joystick USB device

Software Applications or programs Operating System

Moore’s Law Gordon Earle Moore –Co-founder of Intel –Computing power doubles about every 18 months

Central Processing Unit 32-bit –Most PCs have this type 64-bit –Latest Mac has this type –New PCs have this type –Better graphics on faster computers

Trends Keydrives and other flash media storage devices Portable PCs (40% of market in 2003) Flat panel monitors (about 50% of sales in 2004)

Potpourri Computer Industry sold $41 billion in equipment in 2002 –Computers make up 67% of that amount Intel has 83% of chip market About 40% of business software in the world is pirated Convergence, convergence, convergence