Study Sheet - Chapter 1
Disclaimer: This study sheet covers important terms and concepts that I
found in the text. The absence of a specific item in the text from this list
does not mean that you are not responsible for knowing it.
Warning: for entertainment purposes only.
Terms
| translation |
interpretation |
levels |
virtual machine |
| microprogramming |
operating system |
batch system |
timesharing |
| Moore's law |
virtuous circle |
RFID |
micro-controllers |
| server farm |
|
|
|
You should understand:
- the 6-level computer shown in Figure 1-2 on page
5
- that "Hardware and software are logically
equivalent" or "hardware is petrified software"
- the rise and fall of CISC and the
microprogramming paradigm
- binary/metric units: KB
= 2^10, MB = 2^20, GB = 2^30, TB = 2^40
- metric units: milli =
10^-3, micro = 10^-6, nano = 10^-9, pico = 10^-12
Milestones
Zero'th generation - mechanical computers
| Blaise Pascal |
Charles Babbage |
difference engine |
analytical engine |
| Ada Lovelace |
|
|
|
First generation - vacuum tubes
| Enigma code |
Colossus |
Alan Turing |
ENIAC |
| ILLIAC |
John von Neumann |
von Neumann machine |
accumulator |
Second generation - transistors
| William Shockley |
supercomputer |
Seymour Cray |
PDP-1 |
| |
|
|
|
Third generation - integrated circuits
| Robert Noyce |
System/360 |
multiprogramming |
PDP-11 |
| |
|
|
|
Fourth generation - VLSI
| VLSI |
PC clones |
Microsoft |
MS-DOS |
| GUI |
|
|
|
Fifth generation - invisible computers
Computer families
Pentium (Intel) family
| 4004 |
8080 |
8088 |
80386 |
| MMX |
SSE |
backward compatible |
|
Sparc (Sun) family
| Andy Bechtolsheim |
Scott McNealy |
Bill Joy |
Sparc |
| Ultrasparc |
Sparc, version 9 |
Visual Instruction Set (VIS) |
|
8051 - RAM, ROM, I/O, timer specs
|