4th Form ICT
 
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4th Form ICT: lesson 2

Lesson 2  Home & mobile technologies

The aims of this lesson are:
  1. to establish who has what at home;
  2. to discover how familiar you are with your home hardware, operating system (OS) and software;
  3. to put this in the context of the emergence of personal computers and their operating systems;
  4. to explore the connection between mobiles and desktops/laptops;
  5. to discuss how mobile the future of computing is going to be.

1 & 2:  From last week's prep, you should have a saved Word document on your H drive setting out what home hardware, operating systems (OS) and software you have. Your teacher will spend a few minutes with you, discussing and comparing and summarising what you each have. The data will allow your teacher to compile (either in the lesson or for next time) a summary table of types of hardware, software and OS.

3: 'the emergence of personal computers and their operating systems'. Resources your teacher may make use of include: Making the first disk drive (CNET, 2006), Twenty five years of the IBM PC (BBC, 2006),  Apple's 1984 advert (see also Wikipedia; and see also Apple II History Museum - Computers: Apple I and Apple II History Museum - Computers: Apple II); Personal Computer (Wikipedia); A Brief History of Computers, As Seen in Old TV Ads (some links broken); Wikipedia's two entries, Operating systems and History of operating systems.

Key points for you to take in (links are to Wikipedia):

  • A computer is a programmable device, usually electronic in nature, that can store, retrieve, and process data.
  • A personal computer (PC) is a computer whose price, size, and capabilities make it useful for individuals.
  • Mainframes are computers used mainly by large organizations. The term probably originated from the early mainframes, as they were housed in enormous, room-sized metal boxes or frames.
  • An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer.

4: Your Word document should also contain information about your mobile phone -- its make, OS and software. Again, class-compiled data will lead to a table of information.  Mobile computing has long been dreamt of: Ted Nelson, a legendary figure in the development of modern computing, imagined a world of personal, mobile computing at a time when there weren't even personal computers, let alone mobile ones -- see this article by him (the first section), in part dating from 1966. Now, his dream is beginning to be realised.

5: If time, we'll come on to the iPhone and its multi-touch screen technology. The iPhone home page is here; adverts are here; a short film (3m) about Jeff Han's amazing multi-touch screen work is here and a slightly longer one (9m) is here.

Prep: will be set! (It might well require you to look at Information Age: People, Information & Technology.)