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The term hardware refers to the physical components of your computer such as the system unit, mouse, keyboard, monitor,printer,scanner, etc.in this category i want to\u00a0discuss about\u00a0hardware of 7<\/span> types of computers that work differently from least powerful computing until most powerful computing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n History of Computer Hardware<\/p>\n The\u00a0history of computing hardware\u00a0is the record of the ongoing effort to make computer hardware faster, cheaper, and capable of storing more data.<\/p>\n Computing hardware evolved from machines that needed separate manual action to perform each arithmetic operation, to punched card machines, and then to\u00a0stored-program computers. The history of stored-program computers relates first to computer architecture, that is, the organization of the units to perform input and output, to store data and to operate as an integrated mechanism (see\u00a0block diagram\u00a0to the right). Secondly, this is a history of the electronic components and mechanical devices that comprise these units. Finally, we describe the continuing integration of 21st-century supercomputers, networks, personal devices, and integrated computers\/communicators into many aspects of today’s society. Increases in speed and memory capacity, and decreases in cost and size in relation to compute power, are major features of the history. As all computers rely on digital storage, and tend to be limited by the size and speed of memory, the history of\u00a0computer data storage\u00a0is tied to the development of computers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Important!<\/strong><\/p>Personal compute<\/strong>r<\/div>\n .<\/span>Computer Hardware Component<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Computer Ports<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Computer Slots<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Important!<\/strong><\/p>Workstation<\/strong><\/div>\n A\u00a0workstation\u00a0is a high-end\u00a0microcomputer\u00a0designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a\u00a0local area network\u00a0and run\u00a0multi-user\u00a0operating systems. The term\u00a0workstation<\/em>\u00a0has also been used to refer to amainframe computer\u00a0terminal or a PC connected to a\u00a0network.<\/p>\n Historically, workstations had offered higher performance than\u00a0desktop computers, especially with respect to\u00a0CPU\u00a0and\u00a0graphics, memory capacity, and multitasking capability. They are optimized for the\u00a0visualization\u00a0and manipulation of different types of complex data such as 3D mechanical design, engineering simulation (e.g.\u00a0computational fluid dynamics), animation and rendering of images, and mathematical plots. Consoles consist of a high resolution display, a\u00a0keyboard\u00a0and a\u00a0mouse\u00a0at a minimum, but also offer multiple displays,\u00a0graphics tablets, 3D mice (devices for manipulating 3D objects and navigating scenes), etc. Workstations are the first segment of the computer market to present advanced accessories and\u00a0collaboration tools.<\/p>\n Presently, the workstation market is highly\u00a0commoditized\u00a0and is dominated by large PC vendors, such as\u00a0Dell\u00a0and\u00a0HP, selling\u00a0Microsoft Windows\/Linux\u00a0running on Intel\u00a0Xeon\/AMD\u00a0Opteron. Alternative UNIX based platforms are provided by\u00a0Apple Inc.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Important!<\/strong><\/p>Mini Computer<\/strong><\/div>\n Minicomputer\u00a0(colloquially,\u00a0mini) is a term for class of smaller\u00a0computers\u00a0that evolved in the mid 1960s and sold for much less than mainframe and mid-size computers from\u00a0IBM\u00a0and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, the New York Times suggested a consensus definition of a minicomputer as a machine costing less than $25,000, with an input-output device such as a teleprinter and at least 4K words of memory, that is capable of running programs in a higher level language such as\u00a0FORTRAN\u00a0or Basic.\u00a0The class formed a distinct group with its own hardware architectures and operating systems.<\/p>\n When single chip CPUs appeared, beginning with the\u00a0Intel 4004\u00a0in 1971, the term minicomputer came to mean a machine that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the smallest\u00a0mainframe computers\u00a0and the\u00a0microcomputers. The term minicomputer is little used today; the contemporary term for this class of system is\u00a0midrange computer, such as the higher-end\u00a0SPARC,\u00a0POWER\u00a0and\u00a0Itanium-based systems from\u00a0Oracle,\u00a0IBM\u00a0and\u00a0Hewlett-Packard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Important!<\/strong><\/p>Mainframe computers<\/strong><\/div>\n Mainframe computers<\/strong>\u00a0(colloquially referred to as “big iron”) are powerful\u00a0computers\u00a0used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as\u00a0census, industry and consumer statistics,\u00a0enterprise resource planning, andtransaction processing. The term originally referred to the large cabinets that housed the\u00a0central processing unit\u00a0and main\u00a0memory\u00a0of early computers.\u00a0Later, the term was used to distinguish high-end commercial machines from less powerful units.\u00a0Most large-scale computer system architectures were established in the 1960s, but continue to evolve.<\/p>\n Most modern mainframe design is not so much defined by single task computational speed, typically defined as\u00a0MIPS\u00a0rate or\u00a0FLOPS\u00a0in the case of floating point calculations, as much as by their redundant internal engineering and resulting high reliability and security, extensive input-output facilities, strict\u00a0backward compatibility\u00a0with older software, and high hardware and computational utilization rates to support massive throughput. These machines often run for long periods of time without interruption, given their inherent high stability and reliability.<\/p>\n Software upgrades usually require resetting the\u00a0operating system\u00a0or portions thereof, and are non-disruptive only when using virtualizing facilities such as IBM’s\u00a0Z\/OS\u00a0and\u00a0Parallel Sysplex, or Unisys’ XPCL, which support workload sharing so that one system can take over another’s application while it is being refreshed. Mainframes are defined by\u00a0high availability, one of the main reasons for their longevity, since they are typically used in applications where downtime would be costly or catastrophic. The term\u00a0reliability, availability and serviceability\u00a0(RAS) is a defining characteristic of mainframe computers. Proper planning and implementation is required to exploit these features, and if improperly implemented, may serve to inhibit the benefits provided. In addition, mainframes are more secure than other computer types. The NIST\u00a0National Institute of Standards and Technology\u00a0vulnerabilities database, US-CERT, rates traditional mainframes such as IBM zSeries, Unisys Dorado and Unisys Libra as among the most secure with vulnerabilities in the low single digits as compared with thousands for Windows, Linux and Unix.<\/p>\n In the 1960s, most mainframes had no explicitly interactive interface. They accepted sets of\u00a0punched cards, paper tape, and\/or magnetic tape and operated solely in\u00a0batch\u00a0mode to support\u00a0back officefunctions, such as customer billing.\u00a0Teletype\u00a0devices were also common, for system operators, in implementing programming techniques. By the early 1970s, many mainframes acquired interactive user interfaces and operated as\u00a0timesharing\u00a0computers, supporting hundreds of users simultaneously along with batch processing. Users gained access through specialized\u00a0terminals\u00a0or, later, frompersonal computers\u00a0equipped with\u00a0terminal emulation\u00a0software. By the 1980s, many mainframes supported graphical terminals, and terminal emulation, but not graphical user interfaces. This format of end-user computing reached mainstream obsolescence in the 1990s due to the advent of personal computers provided with GUIs. After 2000, most modern mainframes have partially or entirely phased out classic terminal access for end-users in favour of Web user interfaces.<\/p>\n Historically, mainframes acquired their name in part because of their substantial size, and because of requirements for specialized heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), and electrical power, essentially posing a “main framework” of dedicated infrastructure. The requirements of high-infrastructure design were drastically reduced during the mid-1990s with\u00a0CMOS\u00a0mainframe designs replacing the older\u00a0bipolar\u00a0technology. IBM claimed that its newer mainframes can reduce data center energy costs for power and cooling, and that they could reduce physical space requirements compared to\u00a0server farms.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Important!<\/strong><\/p>\u00a0Supercompute<\/strong>r<\/div>\n A\u00a0supercomputer<\/strong>\u00a0is a\u00a0computer\u00a0at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation. Supercomputers were introduced in the 1960s and were designed primarily by\u00a0Seymour Cray\u00a0at\u00a0Control Data Corporation\u00a0(CDC), and later at\u00a0Cray Research. While the supercomputers of the 1970s used only a few\u00a0processors, in the 1990s, machines with thousands of processors began to appear and by the end of the 20th century, massively parallel supercomputers with tens of thousands of “off-the-shelf” processors were the norm.<\/p>\n Systems with a massive number of processors generally take one of two paths: in one approach, e.g. in\u00a0grid computing\u00a0the processing power of a large number of computers in distributed, diverse administrative domains, is opportunistically used whenever a computer is available.\u00a0In another approach, a large number of processors are used in close proximity to each other, e.g. in a\u00a0computer cluster. The use of\u00a0multi-core processors\u00a0combined with centralization is an emerging direction.Currently, Japan’s\u00a0K computer\u00a0(a cluster) is the fastest in the world.<\/p>\n Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including\u00a0quantum physics,\u00a0weather forecasting,\u00a0climate research,\u00a0oil and gas exploration,\u00a0molecular modeling\u00a0(computing the structures and properties of chemical compounds, biologicalmacromolecules, polymers, and crystals), and physical simulations (such as simulation of airplanes in\u00a0wind tunnels, simulation of the detonation of\u00a0nuclear weapons, and research into\u00a0nuclear fusion).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Important!<\/strong><\/p>Grid computer<\/strong><\/div>\n Grid computing\u00a0is a term referring to the federation of computer resources from multiple administrative domains to reach a common goal. The\u00a0grid\u00a0can be thought of as a\u00a0distributed system\u00a0with non-interactive workloads that involve a large number of files. What distinguishes grid computing from conventional high performance computing systems such as cluster computing is that grids tend to be more loosely coupled, heterogeneous, and geographically dispersed. Although a grid can be dedicated to a specialized application, it is more common that a single grid will be used for a variety of different purposes. Grids are often constructed with the aid of general-purpose grid software libraries known as\u00a0middleware.<\/p>\n Grid size can vary by a considerable amount. Grids are a form of\u00a0distributed computing\u00a0whereby a\u00a0\u201csuper virtual computer\u201d\u00a0is composed of many networked\u00a0loosely coupled\u00a0computers acting together to perform very large tasks. For certain applications, \u201cdistributed\u201d or \u201cgrid\u201d computing, can be seen as a special type of\u00a0parallel computing\u00a0that relies on complete computers (with onboard CPUs, storage, power supplies, network interfaces, etc.) connected to a\u00a0network\u00a0(private, public or the\u00a0Internet) by a conventional\u00a0network interface, such as\u00a0Ethernet. This is in contrast to the traditional notion of a\u00a0supercomputer, which has many processors connected by a local high-speed\u00a0computer bus.<\/p>\n Grid computing combines computers from multiple administrative domains to reach\u00a0a common goal,\u00a0to solve a single task, and may then disappear just as quickly.<\/p>\n One of the main strategies of grid computing is to use\u00a0middleware\u00a0to divide and apportion pieces of a program among several computers, sometimes up to many thousands. Grid computing involves computation in a distributed fashion, which may also involve the aggregation of large-scale\u00a0cluster\u00a0computing-based systems.<\/p>\n The size of a grid may vary from small\u2014confined to a network of computer workstations within a corporation, for example\u2014to large, public collaborations across many companies and networks. “The notion of a confined grid may also be known as an intra-nodes cooperation whilst the notion of a larger, wider grid may thus refer to an inter-nodes cooperation”.<\/p>\n Grids are a form of\u00a0distributed computing\u00a0whereby a \u201csuper virtual computer\u201d is composed of many networked\u00a0loosely coupled\u00a0computers acting together to perform very large tasks. This technology has been applied to computationally intensive scientific, mathematical, and academic problems through\u00a0volunteer computing, and it is used in commercial enterprises for such diverse applications asdrug discovery,\u00a0economic forecasting,\u00a0seismic analysis, and\u00a0back office\u00a0data processing in support for\u00a0e-commerce\u00a0and\u00a0Web services.<\/p>\n Coordinating applications on Grids can be a complex task, especially when coordinating the flow of information across distributed computing resources.\u00a0Grid workflow\u00a0systems have been developed as a specialized form of a workflow management system designed specifically to compose and execute a series of computational or data manipulation steps, or a workflow, in the Grid context.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Important!<\/strong><\/p>Quantum Computer<\/strong><\/div>\n A\u00a0quantum computer<\/strong>\u00a0is a device for\u00a0computation\u00a0that makes direct use of\u00a0quantum mechanical\u00a0phenomena, such as\u00a0superposition\u00a0and\u00a0entanglement, to perform operations on\u00a0data. Quantum computers are different from digital computers based on\u00a0transistors. Whereas digital computers require data to be encoded into binary digits (bits), quantum computation utilizes quantum properties to represent data and perform\u00a0operations\u00a0on these data.A theoretical model is the\u00a0quantum Turing machine, also known as the universal quantum computer. Quantum computers share theoretical similarities with\u00a0non-deterministic\u00a0and\u00a0probabilistic computers, like the ability to be in more than one state simultaneously. The field of quantum computing was first introduced by\u00a0Richard Feynman\u00a0in 1982.<\/p>\n Although quantum computing is still in its infancy, experiments have been carried out in which quantum computational operations were executed on a very small number of\u00a0qubits\u00a0(quantum bits). Both practical and theoretical research continues, and many national government and military funding agencies support quantum computing research to develop quantum\u00a0computers\u00a0for both civilian and national security purposes, such as\u00a0cryptanalysis.<\/p>\n Large-scale quantum computers could be able to solve certain problems much faster than any classical computer by using the best currently known algorithms, like\u00a0integer factorization\u00a0using\u00a0Shor’s algorithm\u00a0or the\u00a0simulation of quantum many-body systems. There exist quantum algorithms, such asSimon’s algorithm, which run faster than any possible probabilistic classical algorithm.<\/p>\n Given unlimited resources, a classical computer can simulate an arbitrary quantum algorithm so quantum computation does not violate the\u00a0Church\u2013Turing thesis.\u00a0However, in practice infinite resources are never available and the computational basis of 500 qubits, for example, would already be too large to be represented on a classical computer because it would require 2500<\/sup>complex values to be stored.(For comparison, a terabyte of digital information stores only 243<\/sup>\u00a0discrete<\/em>\u00a0on\/off values) Nielsen and Chuang point out that “Trying to store all these complex numbers would not be possible on any conceivable classical computer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The term hardware refers to the physical components of your computer such as the system unit, mouse, keyboard, monitor,printer,scanner, etc.in this category i want to\u00a0discuss about\u00a0hardware of 7 types of computers that work differently from least powerful computing until most powerful computing. . History of Computer Hardware The\u00a0history of computing hardware\u00a0is the record of … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/fxplans.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/list-of-computer1.jpg\" "\\"list")
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