2.05 Mobile Devices and Apps: Hardware and Software

2.05 Mobile Devices and Apps: Hardware and Software Curriculum Page

Portfolio Questions:

1. Give an example of a special purpose computer that you are familiar with and briefly describe its hardware and its software.
   • An example of a special purpose computer is a standard calculator. The hardware of a calculator includes the buttons, a chip, keyboard sensors, motherboard, battery, etc. The software of a calculator controls the basic sequences based on the user's inputs. The software produces an answer to the sequence of steps the user puts in the calculator.
2. Explain in your own words the difference between running your app by "Connecting to the Companion" and running your app by "Packaging" it.
   • The difference between running an app by "connecting to the companion," and running the app by "packaging" it is that when you connect to the companion, the blocks that we are writing from the computer are being transferred to the app through the MIT companion app (the software). So, the blocks are interpreted for the Android system which translates them for the processor. (Form of interpretation). For packaging, a piece of the software on the MIT server translates the whole app into binary numbers and puts it into an APK file. The APK file is then loaded onto the device. (Form of compilation).
3. As we learned in this lesson, a byte is about the same amount of memory as a character, such as the letter 't'. There are approximately 7 million characters in all of the Harry Potter novels combined. How many bytes of memory would all of the Harry Potter novels take up? How many copies of the Harry Potter novels would fit on a 7 Gigabyte flash drive. (Remember 1 Gigabyte is 1 billion bytes.)
   • The Harry Potter novels would take up 7 million bytes of memory. (7 billion / 7 million) So, 1,000 copies of the Harry Potter novels would be able to fit on a 7 Gigabyte drive.