What are the Different Types of Computers?

What are the Different Types of Computers?

Based on the operational principle of computers, they are categorized as analog, digital and hybrid computers.

Operational Principle

Analog Digital Hybrid

Analog Computers: These are almost extinct today. These are different from a digital computer because an analog computer can perform several mathematical operations simultaneously. It uses continuous variables for mathematical operations and utilizes mechanical or electrical energy.

Digital Computers: They use digital circuits and are designed to operate on two states, namely bits 0 and 1. They are analogous to states ON and OFF. Data on these computers is represented as a series of 0s and 1s. Digital computers are suitable for complex computation and have higher processing speeds. They are programmable. Digital computers are either general purpose computers or special purpose ones. General purpose computers, as their name suggests, are designed for specific types of data processing while general purpose computers are meant for general use.

Hybrid Computers: These computers are a combination of both digital and analog computers. In this type of computers, the digital segments perform process control by conversion of analog signals to digital ones.

This was the classification of computers based on their style of functioning. Following is a classification of the different types of computers based on their sizes and processing powers.

Processing Power

Mainframe Microcomputers

Mainframe Computers: Large organizations use mainframes for highly critical applications such as bulk data processing and ERP. Most of the mainframe computers have capacities to host multiple operating systems and operate as a number of virtual machines. They can substitute for several small servers.

Microcomputers: A computer with a microprocessor and its central processing unit is known as a microcomputer. They do not occupy space as much as mainframes do. When supplemented with a keyboard and a mouse, microcomputers can be called personal computers. A monitor, a keyboard and other similar input-output devices, computer memory in the form of RAM and a power supply unit come packaged in a microcomputer. These computers can fit on desks or tables and prove to be the best choice for single-user tasks.

Personal computers come in different forms such as desktops, laptops and personal digital assistants. Let us look at each of these types of computers.

Personal Computers

Desktop Laptop Netbook PDA Minicomputer Server Supercomputer Wearable Computer Tablet

Desktops: A desktop is intended to be used on a single location. The spare parts of a desktop computer are readily available at relatively lower costs. Power consumption is not as critical as that in laptops. Desktops are widely popular for daily use in the workplace and households.

Laptops: Similar in operation to desktops, laptop computers are miniaturized and optimized for mobile use. Laptops run on a single battery or an external adapter that charges the computer batteries. They are enabled with an inbuilt keyboard, touch pad acting as a mouse and a liquid crystal display. Their portability and capacity to operate on battery power have proven to be of great help to mobile users.

Netbooks: They fall in the category of laptops, but are inexpensive and relatively smaller in size. They had a smaller feature set and lesser capacities in comparison to regular laptops, at the time they came into the market. But with passing time, netbooks too began featuring almost everything that notebooks had. By the end of 2008, netbooks had begun to overtake notebooks in terms of market share and sales.

Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs): It is a handheld computer and popularly known as a palmtop. It has a touch screen and a memory card for storage of data. PDAs can also be used as portable audio players, web browsers and smartphones. Most of them can access the Internet by means of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi communication.

Minicomputers: In terms of size and processing capacity, minicomputers lie in between mainframes and microcomputers. Minicomputers are also called mid-range systems or workstations. The term began to be popularly used in the 1960s to refer to relatively smaller third generation computers. They took up the space that would be needed for a refrigerator or two and used transistor and core memory technologies. The 12-bit PDP-8 minicomputer of the Digital Equipment Corporation was the first successful minicomputer.

Servers: They are computers designed to provide services to client machines in a computer network. They have larger storage capacities and powerful processors. Running on them are programs that serve client requests and allocate resources like memory and time to client machines. Usually they are very large in size, as they have large processors and many hard drives. They are designed to be fail-safe and resistant to crash.

Supercomputers: The highly calculation-intensive tasks can be effectively performed by means of supercomputers. Quantum physics, mechanics, weather forecasting, molecular theory are best studied by means of supercomputers. Their ability of parallel processing and their well-designed memory hierarchy give the supercomputers, large transaction processing powers.

Wearable Computers: A record-setting step in the evolution of computers was the creation of wearable computers. These computers can be worn on the body and are often used in the study of behavior modeling and human health. Military and health professionals have incorporated wearable computers into their daily routine, as a part of such studies. When the users' hands and sensory organs are engaged in other activities, wearable computers are of great help in tracking human actions. Wearable computers do not have to be turned on and off and remain in operation without user intervention.

Tablet Computers: Tablets are mobile computers that are very handy to use. They use the touch screen technology. Tablets come with an onscreen keyboard or use a stylus or a digital pen. Apple's iPad redefined the class of tablet computers.

These were some of the different types of computers used today. Looking at the rate of advancement in technology, we can definitely look forward to many more types of computers in the near future.

Types of computer

What are the different types of computers?

Different types of computer systems are nowadays available for different purposes according the user needs.

When you’ll have to order yours or even to build it, you should first define the expected use of your computer.

This step will help you to describe the basic capabilities and know the costs of your system.

What are the different types of computer system?

This is a brief view of the main expressions used to describe your computer.

Personal computers or microcomputers

Microcomputers are built to be used by one person. In fact when you talk about personal computers or its common acronym PC, you always mean microcomputers. For surfing the web, playing games or music, editing and many other tasks… you ordinarily use personal computers either at school, at home or at business.

You’ll find personal computers in two (2) major types: desktop and laptop.

If you opt for a desktop computer you have to set it up in a permanent location. Fortunately you are able to choose your preferred sizes such as a mini, mid or full tower.

You should then add many other devices to complete it such as keyboard, mouse and monitor which can be a CRT or LCD display.

What about Workstations and Servers?

If you need a high-end micro computer you should go for a workstation. This type of computer is recommended if you are working in game development, scientific calculations, engineering or 3D graphics. It is fastest than the common personal computer and even it can be used as server if you need to build a basic network client by example.

The server is generally used for a major client with the purpose to allow many users working together over a network. Servers require powerful processors, large amount of hard disk drives and ram memory.

Types of mobile computers

If you prefer the laptop you’ll go for the mobile or portable system. Your notebook, a common name of laptop, has the advantage to have all the parts built together.

Your notebook has the same computing power to the desktop machine but it is enough lightweight to be portable. If the mobile machine is relatively more expensive it’s because it costs more to design the small components.

Maybe you’ll need greater portability. So a handheld micro computer is your first option. To manage your phone book, diary or taking notes...etc a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) is useful.

You can also use the Palmtop, a tinier laptop than the PDA, to the same purposes and even more. The Palmtop is designed with a small keyboard and a flip-up screen and is more usable to surf the web while you are on the move.

Types of mini computers

Apart the micro computers, you may consider three other types of computers: the minicomputers, the mainframes and the supercomputers.

Be advised that the name minicomputers does not mean it is slowest than your PC. Surely not! If you plan to build a home network the minicomputers can be used as a mid- range server to serve multiple users.

However with the mainframe you are able to build a large network for several hundred clients. You can process millions of transactions daily with the mainframe because of its high capacity. Most of enterprises such as large organizations, insurance businesses, industry, banking … usually use the mainframe for processing and storing enormous amounts of data every day.

The supercomputer is the fastest machine in the history of computer not only for its size but especially for its capacity. You won’t have to use this powerful system unless you are working with nuclear or aerodynamic companies for example.

Conclusion Through this brief description you had opportunity to learn a lot about the different generation of computer. Nowadays many electronics devices are working like computers. Your iPod, your cell phone or even your watch has an integrated computer application. In the near future you can’t imagine what you are expected as newer types of computer!

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Understanding Your Computer

Understanding the anatomy of a PC is no easy task, even if you've used one every day for years. You may have heard the terms "motherboard" or "central processing unit," but asking most people to define these very essential components is likely to draw blank stares.

The two main types of computers are portable and desktop. Portable computers come in various shapes and sizes, and include laptops and hand-held devices. Desktops are stationary, typically with a more powerful configuration. Several components are essential to both. Hands down, the most powerful component of a computer is the central processing unit (CPU). Other basic and necessary components include memory, the motherboard, the hard drive and the power supply.

Central processing unit

The CPU handles all of the computation work and is distinguished by its speed. The higher the speed, the faster the PC. If you're watching high-definition movies or manipulating graphics, then you'll need a computer with fast processing.

Random access memory (RAM)

Your computer can't function without memory. RAM is the hardware inside the computer that stores information. Get a minimum of 512 megabytes -- memory is even more important than the speed of the processor. The more RAM a computer has, the more smoothly the PC will run when using several programs at once. While adding more memory later isn't time consuming, getting what you need when you purchase the computer is worthwhile and may be more cost effective.

Motherboard

The motherboard provides the connections within the computer and hosts the RAM, microprocessor and drive controllers. The microprocessor is the brain of the computer and controls the operations, while the drive controllers enable the computer's hard drive to work. The motherboard should have at least two USB ports to plug in a digital audio player or additional memory drive.

Hard drive

All data created on the computer, whether it's homework, business files or personal data, are stored on the hard drive. It has a much larger capacity than the RAM.

Power supply

The last of the mandatory computer components is the power supply. While it may be the simplest, it's absolutely essential for allowing the computer to work. Enough said.

Modem

With the Internet being the center of the world for many of us, access to it could actually move to the essential list. Most PCs have a modem for dial-up Internet access and an Ethernet port for broadband access. For a wireless connection, you'll need a wireless network adapter, also standard on most computers.

CD/DVD drive

A CD or DVD drive (also known as an optical drive) is the readable and/or writable drive that allows users to read from and write to a CD or DVD. Most PCs have an optical drive that can read CDs and DVDs, and for not much more money, you can get a drive that writes, too.

Audio/visual extras

Determine whether additional items such as sound cards, graphic cards, video cards or speakers fit your needs. If you want to run games or multimedia programs faster, then many of these options can prove beneficial. Integrated sound is already adequate on most computers, but upgrading to surround sound is a desirable option.

Keyboard, mouse and monitor

The keyboard allows users to enter commands, and the mouse is an interface with the same function. The monitor, serving as a desktop computer screen, comes in various sizes. A small monitor is typically around 17 inches, while greater than 20 inches is considered large. The higher the resolution on the monitor, the better the graphics card you'll need to run games or video-intense applications. If you're undecided, you can't go wrong with a 22-inch digital monitor.

Operating system and software

After you've made all the hardware decisions, determine what pre-installed software you'll need for your computer. Select the latest version of an operating system such as Microsoft Windows, the best-selling operating system for years. Also purchase an anti-virus program such as Norton or Trend Micro, and choose from other programs such as word processing and spreadsheets.
So much for thinking you couldn't understand a PC from A to Z! This ultra-complex machine deserves our thanks. After all, functioning without a computer these days would be like living in the dark.

computers

Types of Hard Drive Formatting

2.2.2 Types of Hard Drive Formatting
The two types of hard drive formatting are low and high level. Low level formatting creates the track and sectors on the drive. These tracks and sectors form the physical blocks of storage of 512 bytes each.
High level formatting is file system specific, including Microsoft (DOS, FAT, and NTFS) and Open Source Initiative (OSI) varieties (ext2, ReiserFS, and XFS). Low level formatting is done by the hard drive vendor. High level formatting is done when the OS is installed.
High level formatting creates the hard drive's file system and allows the OS to store files by dividing them into smaller pieces and saving them in separate clusters (a grouping of sectors) on the disk. The OS uses this file system to keep track of the placement and sequence of each piece and to identify which sectors on the disk are free and available for new files. The computer can then assemble the different pieces when a file is viewed or executed.

Why Understand File Systems?
Different OS, different file systems
Poor documentation
File location
Hidden data
File deletion


2.2.3 Importance of File Systems

A file system has two basic functions that impact the computer's performance:
. mapping physical spaces on the drive to logical addresses that comprise files
. read/write capability to open, change, and delete files
Understanding how these functions work on different file systems is the foundation for responding to a security incident. Most file systems are related directly to a particular OS, although some OSs combine file systems.
To discover where files are located and how they are distributed, you need to know how to access and modify system settings when necessary. This is especially important because files can be hidden.
Typically when a user deletes a file, the file system does not permanently erase (wipe) the file from the hard drive. It simply creates a flag that tells the OS that the sector can be reused. Knowing how to rebuild files from the file system is one of the most important skills of the forensic examiner.
The forensic examiner has access to deleted files and to files contained in swap space, which is part of the virtual memory created on the hard drive by the OS. Swap space files are described later in this module.