Personal Computers. What are they?

Personal computers can be categorized by size and portability:

· Desktop computers

· Laptop/notebooks and netbooks

· Personal digital assistants (PDAs)

· Tablet computers

· Wearable computers

Most of today's portable computers fall into the "laptop" class and “notebook”or even the smaller "netbook" class. Laptops/notebooks range from briefcase size to paperback size and many of them provide as much power as full-size computers. Netbook is the next step of getting computers smaller. People use netbooks mostly for displaying information than for any other purpose. Don’t forget that netbook has no DVD-drive, you can use only flash memory cards.

PDA is hand-held computer also called Personal Communicators and Personal Intelligent Communicators. Most PDAs can connect to other computers, either through telephone lines, radio waves, or a computer cable. Many have PC card slots for attaching modems and other auxiliary devices. Most PDAs are capable of at least limited handwriting recognition, allowing

users to enter notes into the computer with a special pen-like device, stylus, rather than with a keyboard.

A Tablet PC is a complete computer contained in a touch screen. Tablet computers can be specialized for only Internet use or be full-blown, general-purpose PCs with all the options of a desktop unit. The distinguishing characteristic is the use of the screen as an input device using a stylus or finger.

A wearable computer is a very personal computer. It should be worn like a piece of clothing. A user should interact with the computer based upon context. It could be a communications device (immediate or store and forward), a recorder (visual, audio, other sensors) or a reference device (local or remote resources).

Many mass-market IBM PC compatible and Apple Macintosh personal computers are standardized to the point that purchased software is expected to run with little or no customization for the particular computer. Often memory and peripherals such as video boards and disk storage are easily upgradeable, even by the end user. Even the motherboard and central processing unit can be designed to be user-replacable. This upgradeability is, however, not indefinite due to rapid changes in the personal computer industry. A PC that was considered top-of-the-line five or six years prior may be impractical to upgrade due to changes in industry standards. Such a computer usually must be totally replaced once it is no longer suitable for its purpose. This upgrade and replacement cycle is related to new releases of the primary mass-market operating system, which tends to drive the acquisition of new hardware.

The hardware capabilities of personal computers can sometimes be extended by the addition of expansion cards connected via an expansion bus. Some standard peripheral buses often used for adding expansion cards in personal computers are AGP (a high-speed PCI bus dedicated to graphics adapters). Most personal computers as of 2009 include an AGP bus and some expansion slots.

ASWER THE QUESTIONS: 1. Which of the mentioned personal comuters do you have? 2. What are the advantages/diadvantages of each type of computers. 3. PDAs are the most popular nowadays, is it right? 4. Which type of the mentioned computers is the least popular? Why? 5. Which type of these computers do you never see? 6. What other classifications of computers do you know? 7. What is the purpose of any wearable computer? 8. Could we use any Microsoft product on Apple computers? Why? 9. Why do you think most of our computers have OS of this comany? 10. Do you know any other computer companies, besides IBM, Microsoft and Apple? 11. What options should the best copmuter have from your point of view? 12. If you have a choice what type of the discussed computers you will choose. 13. Is it right that some computers could’t be upgraded at all? 14. Is it so easy to upgrade your computer? Why? 15. Try to describe each of the above-mentioned category of PCs.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-11