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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

NETWORKING AND INTERNET

Networking and the Internet

Visualization of a portion of the routes on the Internet.

Computers have been used to coordinate information between multiple locations since the 1950s. The U.S. military's SAGE system was the first large-scale example of such a system, which led to a number of special-purpose commercial systems like Sabre.[32]

In the 1970s, computer engineers at research institutions throughout the United States began to link their computers together using telecommunications technology. This effort was funded by ARPA (now DARPA), and the computer network that it produced was called the ARPANET.[33] The technologies that made the Arpanet possible spread and evolved.

In time, the network spread beyond academic and military institutions and became known as the Internet. The emergence of networking involved a redefinition of the nature and boundaries of the computer. Computer operating systems and applications were modified to include the ability to define and access the resources of other computers on the network, such as peripheral devices, stored information, and the like, as extensions of the resources of an individual computer. Initially these facilities were available primarily to people working in high-tech environments, but in the 1990s the spread of applications like e-mail and the World Wide Web, combined with the development of cheap, fast networking technologies like Ethernet and ADSL saw computer networking become almost ubiquitous. In fact, the number of computers that are networked is growing phenomenally. A very large proportion of personal computers regularly connect to the Internet to communicate and receive information. "Wireless" networking, often utilizing mobile phone networks, has meant networking is becoming increasingly ubiquitous even in mobile computingenvironments.


Further topics

Hardware

The term hardware covers all of those parts of a computer that are tangible objects. Circuits, displays, power supplies, cables, keyboards, printers and mice are all hardware.

History of computing hardware

First Generation (Mechanical/Electromechanical)


Calculators


Antikythera mechanism, Difference engine, Norden bombsight

Programmable Devices


Jacquard loom, Analytical engine, Harvard Mark I, Z3

Second Generation (Vacuum Tubes)


Calculators


Atanasoff–Berry Computer, IBM 604, UNIVAC 60, UNIVAC 120

Programmable Devices


Colossus, ENIAC, Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, EDSAC, Manchester Mark 1, Ferranti Pegasus, Ferranti Mercury, CSIRAC, EDVAC, UNIVAC I, IBM 701, IBM 702, IBM 650, Z22

Third Generation (Discrete transistors and SSI, MSI, LSI Integrated circuits)


Mainframes


IBM 7090, IBM 7080, IBM System/360, BUNCH

Minicomputer


PDP-8, PDP-11, IBM System/32, IBM System/36

Fourth Generation (VLSI integrated circuits)


Minicomputer


VAX, IBM System i

4-bit microcomputer


Intel 4004, Intel 4040

8-bit microcomputer


Intel 8008, Intel 8080, Motorola 6800, Motorola 6809, MOS Technology 6502, Zilog Z80

16-bit microcomputer


Intel 8088, Zilog Z8000, WDC 65816/65802

32-bit microcomputer


Intel 80386, Pentium, Motorola 68000, ARM architecture

64-bit microcomputer[34]


Alpha, MIPS, PA-RISC, PowerPC, SPARC, x86-64

Embedded computer


Intel 8048, Intel 8051

Personal computer


Desktop computer, Home computer, Laptop computer, Personal digital assistant (PDA), Portable computer, Tablet PC, Wearable computer

Theoretical/experimental


Quantum computer, Chemical computer, DNA computing, Optical computer, Spintronics based computer






Other Hardware Topics

Peripheral device (Input/output)


Input


Mouse, Keyboard, Joystick, Image scanner, Webcam, Graphics tablet, Microphone

Output


Monitor, Printer, Loudspeaker

Both


Floppy disk drive, Hard disk drive, Optical disc drive, Teleprinter

Computer busses


Short range


RS-232, SCSI, PCI, USB

Long range (Computer networking)


Ethernet, ATM, FDDI

Software

Software refers to parts of the computer which do not have a material form, such as programs, data, protocols, etc. When software is stored in hardware that cannot easily be modified (such as BIOS ROM in an IBM PC compatible), it is sometimes called "firmware" to indicate that it falls into an uncertain area somewhere between hardware and software.

Computer software

Operating system


Unix and BSD


UNIX System V, IBM AIX, HP-UX, Solaris (SunOS), IRIX, List of BSD operating systems

GNU/Linux


List of Linux distributions, Comparison of Linux distributions

Microsoft Windows


Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows CE

DOS


86-DOS (QDOS), PC-DOS, MS-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS

Mac OS


Mac OS classic, Mac OS X

Embedded and real-time


List of embedded operating systems

Experimental


Amoeba, Oberon/Bluebottle, Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Library


Multimedia


DirectX, OpenGL, OpenAL

Programming library


C standard library, Standard Template Library

Data


Protocol


TCP/IP, Kermit, FTP, HTTP, SMTP

File format


HTML, XML, JPEG, MPEG, PNG

User interface


Graphical user interface (WIMP)


Microsoft Windows, GNOME, KDE, QNX Photon, CDE, GEM, Aqua

Text-based user interface


Command-line interface, Text user interface

Application


Office suite


Word processing, Desktop publishing, Presentation program, Database management system, Scheduling & Time management, Spreadsheet, Accounting software

Internet Access


Browser, E-mail client, Web server, Mail transfer agent, Instant messaging

Design and manufacturing


Computer-aided design, Computer-aided manufacturing, Plant management, Robotic manufacturing, Supply chain management

Graphics


Raster graphics editor, Vector graphics editor, 3D modeler, Animation editor, 3D computer graphics, Video editing, Image processing

Audio


Digital audio editor, Audio playback, Mixing, Audio synthesis, Computer music

Software engineering


Compiler, Assembler, Interpreter, Debugger, Text editor, Integrated development environment, Software performance analysis, Revision control, Software configuration management

Educational


Edutainment, Educational game, Serious game, Flight simulator

Games


Strategy, Arcade, Puzzle, Simulation, First-person shooter, Platform, Massively multiplayer, Interactive fiction

Misc


Artificial intelligence, Antivirus software, Malware scanner, Installer/Package management systems, File manager

Programming languages

Programming languages provide various ways of specifying programs for computers to run. Unlike natural languages, programming languages are designed to permit no ambiguity and to be concise. They are purely written languages and are often difficult to read aloud. They are generally either translated into machine code by a compiler or an assembler before being run, or translated directly at run time by an interpreter. Sometimes programs are executed by a hybrid method of the two techniques. There are thousands of different programming languages—some intended to be general purpose, others useful only for highly specialized applications.

Programming languages

Lists of programming languages


Timeline of programming languages, List of programming languages by category, Generational list of programming languages, List of programming languages, Non-English-based programming languages

Commonly used Assembly languages


ARM, MIPS, x86

Commonly used high-level programming languages


Ada, BASIC, C, C++, C#, COBOL, Fortran, Java, Lisp, Pascal, Object Pascal

Commonly used Scripting languages


Bourne script, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl

Professions and organizations

As the use of computers has spread throughout society, there are an increasing number of careers involving computers.

Computer-related professions

Hardware-related


Electrical engineering, Electronic engineering, Computer engineering, Telecommunications engineering, Optical engineering, Nanoengineering

Software-related


Computer science, Desktop publishing, Human–computer interaction, Information technology, Computational science, Software engineering, Video game industry, Web design

The need for computers to work well together and to be able to exchange information has spawned the need for many standards organizations, clubs and societies of both a formal and informal nature.

Organizations

Standards groups


ANSI, IEC, IEEE, IETF, ISO, W3C

Professional Societies


ACM, ACM Special Interest Groups, IET, IFIP, BCS

Free/Open source software groups


Free Software Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Apache Software Foundation





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