FULLER CHAPTER 1
10 Things Worth Considering
What is the first question you need to ask if you are considering buying a new computer? (need assessment)
What's better, a laptop, desktop, personal? (depends on need . . . consider a laptop with a docking station . . . look at Topics of Interest, pen computer and rolltop computer and Social Media)
What's the world's fastest computer? (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/4448756/IBM-unveils-worlds-fastest-computer.html)
"By the middle of the next century (2050) the typical microprocessor may have more computing power than today's fastest supercomputer.
". . . microchips are produced en masse at the rate of more than a billion each year. . . . imagine that within each tiny microprocessor there exists a structure as complex as a mid-sized city, including all it's power lines, phone lines, sewer lines, buildings, streets, and homes. Now imagine that throughout that same city, millions of people are racing around at light speed and with perfect timing in an intricately choreographed dance. . . . And that is just one chip. Of all the stunning statistics used to describe the world of the microprocessor, none is more extraordinary than this: the total number of transistors packed onto all the microchips produced in the world this year is equivalent to the number of raindrops that fell in California during that same period" And this is ancient history . . . the year of the quote is 1998 from a book celebrating Intel's 30th anniversary (One Digital Day: How The Microchip is Changing Our World).
Is that a digital or an analog clock?
The computer advantage? (speed, accuracy, versatility, storage, communications, networks (LAN, WAN, WWW)
What is the information processing cycle? (Input | Processing | Output - could include Storage)
What is hardware? (physical components - "you can break it with a hammer")
What is software? Is a flash drive hardware or software? (system software, application software, communication software, utilities software)