4th Form ICT 0809
 
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Lesson 2: Home & mobile technologies

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

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 (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.

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.

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: if you haven't already got a Google Account (if you have one already, go here and login), create one now.  Go here and follow the instructions. You'll need to enter an existing email address — you can use your school address (or another).  Once you have your account, login and explore the menus of Google products availbale to you.  The relevant bit of your screen may either look like this,
 
 
or like this:
 
 
Create a test Google document, entering the 'Key points' text above and calling the document 'Key points'.  Save the document.  You'll need it next lesson.