Work Station

1. A workstation is a computer intended for individual use that is faster and more capable than a personal computer. It's intended for business or professional use (rather than home or recreational use).

2. Workstations and applications designed for them are used by small engineering companies, architects, graphic designers, and any organization, department, or individual that requires a faster microprocessor, a large amount of random access memory (RAM), and special features such as high-speed graphics adapters.

Work Station

3. Workstations generally come with a large, high-resolution graphics screen, at least 64 MB (megabytes) of RAM, built-in network support, and a graphical user interface. Most workstations also have a mass storage device such as a disk drive, but a special type of workstation, called a diskless workstation, comes without a disk drive. The most common operating systems for workstations are UNIX and Windows NT.

4. The term "workstation" is sometimes used to mean "any individual personal computer location hooked up to a mainframe computer.

5. Historically, the workstation developed technologically about the same time and for the same audience as the UNIX operating system, which is often used as the workstation operating system. Among the most successful makers of this kind of workstation are Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, DEC, and IBM.

6. Like personal computers (PC), most workstations are single-user computers. However, workstations are typically linked together to form a local-area network, although they can also be used as stand-alone systems.

Read More

Micro Computer

1. Microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers.

2. Microcomputers are the smallest of the four classes of computer (the others are supercomputer, mainframe, and minicomputer).

3. Many microcomputers (when equipped with a keyboard and screen for input and output) are also personal computers (in the generic sense).

Micro Computer

3. The term "Microcomputer" came into popular use after the introduction of the minicomputer, although Isaac Asimov used the term microcomputer in his short story "The Dying Night" as early as 1956 (published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in July that year)

4. In common usage, "microcomputer" has been largely supplanted by the description "personal computer" or "PC," which describes that it has been designed to be used by one person at a time.

5. IBM first promoted the term "personal computer" to differentiate themselves from other microcomputers, often called "home computers", and also IBM's own mainframes and minicomputers. Unfortunately for IBM, the microcomputer itself was widely imitated, as well as the term. The component parts were commonly available to producers and the BIOS was reverse engineered through cleanroom design techniques. IBM PC compatible "clones" became commonplace, and the terms "personal computer," and especially "PC" stuck with the general public.

6. Monitors, keyboards and other devices for input and output may be integrated or separate.

7. Computer memory in the form of RAM, and at least one other less volatile, memory storage device are usually combined with the CPU on a system bus in one unit. Other devices that make up a complete microcomputer system include batteries, a power supply unit, a keyboard and various input/output devices used to convey information to and from a human operator (printers, monitors, human interface devices).

8. Microcomputers are designed to serve only one user at a time, although they can often be modified with software or hardware to concurrently serve more than one user. Microcomputers fit well on or under desks or tables, so that they are within easy access of users.

Read More

Mini Computer

1. Definition of minicomputer is a digital computer of medium sizedigital computer - a computer that represents information by numerical ( binary ) digit.

2. The term "minicomputer" referred to a multi-user computer that was in between the massively sized multi-user mainframes and the single-user desktop terminal.

minicomputer

3. A minicomputer, a term no longer much used, is a computer of a size intermediate between a microcomputer and a mainframe. Typically, minicomputers have been stand-alone computers (computer systems with attached terminals and other devices) sold to small and mid-size businesses for general business applications and to large enterprises for department-level operations

4. The mini computer is a newer breed of computer that blends the portability of a laptop with the a price that is more affordable than a full-sized desktop.

5. Mini computers are prized for their portability and have become a mainstay at events such as LAN gaming parties.

Read More

Mainframe Computer

1. A mainframe (also known as "big iron") is a high-performance computer used for large-scale computing purposes that require greater availability and security than a smaller-scale machine can offer.

2. Historically, mainframes have been associated with centralized rather than distributed computing, although that distinction is blurring as smaller computers become more powerful and mainframes become more multi-purpose.

3. Today, IBM emphasizes that their mainframes can be used to serve distributed users and smaller servers in a computing network.

4. The mainframe is sometimes referred to as a "dinosaur" not only because of its size but because of reports, going back many years, that it's becoming extinct.

5. I.B.M. overhauled the insides of the mainframe, using low-cost microprocessors as the computing engine. The company invested and updated the mainframe software, so that banks, corporations and government agencies could still rely on the mainframe as the rock-solid reliable and secure computer for vital transactions and data, while allowing it to take on new chores like running Web-based programs.

6. The original mainframes were housed in room-sized metal frames, which is probably where the name derives from. In the past, a typical mainframe might have occupied 2,000 - 10,000 square feet.

7. Newer mainframes are about the same size as a large refrigerator.

8. Mainframe computers are expensive, large centralized computer facilities where a super computer is connected to a number of terminals.

9. A multi user mainframe computer has a large memory and is capable of speeds of the order of several billions of floating point operations per second. This computer is commonly used in big hospitals, air line reservations companies, and many other huge companies prefer mainframe because of its capability of retrieving data on a huge basis.This is normally to expensive and out of reach from a salary-based person who wants a computer for his home.

mainframe

Read More

Supercomputer

1. A supercomputer is a computer that is at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.

supercomputer

2. Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems involving quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling (computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biological macromolecules, polymers, and crystals), and physical simulations (such as simulation of airplanes in wind tunnels, simulation of the detonation of nuclear weapons, and research into nuclear fusion).

3. Supercomputers were introduced in the 1960s and were designed primarily by Seymour CrayControl Data Corporation (CDC), which led the market into the 1970s until Cray left to form his own company, Cray Research. He then took over the supercomputer market with his new designs, holding the top spot in supercomputing for five years (1985–1990). In the 1980s a large number of smaller competitors entered the market, in parallel to the creation of the minicomputer market a decade earlier, but many of these disappeared in the mid-1990s "supercomputer market crash". at

5. Today, supercomputers are typically one-of-a-kind custom designs produced by traditional companies such as Cray, IBM and Hewlett-Packard, who had purchased many of the 1980s companies to gain their experience.

6. Currently, Japan's K computer, built by Fujitsu in Kobe, Japan is the fastest in the world. It is three times faster than previous one to hold that title, the Tianhe-1A supercomputer located in China.

Technologies developed for supercomputers include:

• Vector processing
• Liquid cooling
• Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA)
• Striped disks (the first instance of what was later called RAID)
• Parallel filesystems

Read More