Friday, January 25, 2019

a brief history of HOME computers

when we hear terms "windows" or processor or microsoft or hardware or software what do they refer to and mean?
the tangible parts of the computer are called "hardware" bkuz hard and tangible for example the keyboard with the buttons to press for letters; which is an input device.
the information or data which instruct the computer the jobs to perform and compute is called software soft like intangible. for example when we type we send signals to the computer and those signals can be instruction for the computer. this decade we commonly use disks called dvd so before any information is "written" marked on the disk it is only hardware as a solid but then when we add the information called data then we are adding the software which means in the context of computers the "instructions that the computer should perform". in the 1980's there was a surprise... the data called software was on the "soft" hardware called floppy disk... good thing we stopped
 that confusion !!
from all the parts of the computer the piece which PERFORMS computing is called "processer". 
INTEL is one of the famous producers of processors for the computer companies such as apple or IBM of course less famous competitors of each of these companies produce these hardware processors or computers.
one of the famous companies that prepares the software is called microsoft notice the "soft" in the name like software. they prepare the instructions called operating system as explained below.
now we use windows ten but the first o.s. of "windows"  called 1, was published in the year 1985 around 4 years after the first "home" computer [meaning simpler than the business computers used before 1981 which are not the topic of this article] but m. published other o.s. before and after windows 1. also many versions of windows were published since then. think about the words os=the instructions to operate the computer are in inter-related system precisely named "operating system" because it is a system of organized instructions for the computer to operate itself by those instructions.
since the year 2015 we have been using the O.S. called windows 10. windows is the name of the os. see below that the first "windows"" os was published in year 1985.
some major companies are: [abc order] A=apple builds computer hardware meaning the tangible parts such as the circuit boards inside and the components. schools call the main board "mother board".
IBM builds computer hardware. and less famous companies too.
intel builds the processer part which performs the computing. and less famous companies too.
microsoft has soft in its name it build the software meaning the system of inter-related instructions for the computer to perform.
time line
1981 the computer company IBM produced the first simpler home computers so this history begins with this.
1982 great leap  of progress the "hard disk" which is magnetic disks to store data when the computer is switched off [and obviously used and active when on] are improved to store... please do not laf... as much as TEN mega-byte meaning 80 million digits each called "bit". the term bit simply means a signal of either "more" or less power .
a lower voltage meaning possibly 0.4 volt or even 0.8 volt means a symbol for zero 0 zero while the higher voltage 2.7 until 5 v is symbol for 1 one. the name "bits" shortens the term for two digits "binary digits" the bi at the start with the ts at the end- bits. nt one with two but lower voltage as zero and higher voltage for one. the series of attached zeros and ones spell words  for the computer. each time I now type a letter the button I press connects two ends of circuit like tiny wire and a signal is sent like a word so the computer knows which letter to display. the computer shows it on the screen so MYSELF the human can see if I pushed the letter that I intended... and often I see that I pushed the wrong letter and need and can fix it. thanks to the HOME computer people like me can type our opinions or better yet STORIES or summaries for others to enjoy.
this year "hard drives" are often portable with new expensive storing THREE tera-byte. so when we hear 10 MB, that seems ridiculously small this almost 300,000 times more than 1982.
MAGNETIC hard disks now can store 4 tera-byte. the signals are sent simply ne after the other called "serial" in contrast to the other method explained later. the speed now is 120 per second called 7200rpm revolutions per minute as the magnets spin inside the box. the signals of data can move SIX giga-bit per second using bit as above serial style. cost now around 110 USD.
what is tera? or giga?
g means almost 1.1*10^9 units of either bit as above or "byte" which is 8 bits as above. one thousand would be called kilo-bit but 1 KB is 8000 signals. 1000 times more is called mega as above. and one thousand times more is called giga in American English billion. in computing giga is more than one b as 2 times itself 30 times is almost 1.1 billion hence 1 GB is almost 9 billion bits.
tera means a million of millions whether bit or larger byte but in computers 2^40 almost 1.1*10^12. 1099 of millions, whether bit or larger byte.
y1985 o.s. called windows 1 as explained above.
y1989 first computers small enuf to carry with you. common now but then amazing to combine a thin screen with the other parts in one portable unit that is small enuf to carry.
y1993 first "searcher" to use your computer to search things on the internet was called MOSAIC and  by now long forgotten and replaced by many others. a searcher is like a program to find the words you command to search for. the book said mosaic was the first searcher. also the same year Microsoft provided its first searcher called "explorer" it can search for websites with the words you choose from your home computer. explorer can also lead you to other searchers. the searcher is like a program of instructions finding the words you chose. the searcher probably first searches the places "desirable" to the programmer which is bad bkuz it can be used politically... to hide some opinions and only show the desirable ones which is the type of deception called one sided. whether only pro-government as the evil in our past or showing ALL anti-governmrnt is this evil of one sidedness which can and probably is used as a political tool to deceive the readers with only one side of the stories. humans are bad.
more years in next post....
after 1993y1996 first dvd
y2001 the screen cards for the display monitor now contain an additional PROCESSOR to help the fast speed of data for games.
2002-2009 the speed of the central processors called cpu improves each generation of processor chip. LINUX os comes and fades. open means free so could get instead of windows os.
y2009 each processor has many "cores" to share the processing load.
my book is old... now 2019 os windows ten. power of hrd disk now as above.

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