Assignment

CS&P

Question#01
Explain the role of computer in different environments such as home,
business, gaming, education, banking and communication?
A computer is a machine that can be instructed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical
operations automatically via computer programming. Modern computers can follow generalized
sets of operations, called programs. These programs enable computers to perform an extremely
wide range of tasks.

Role of Computer
Home:
The Computers in Homes programmed aims to help families in need to use the internet and
develop basic computer skills in their everyday lives, which will raise the literacy level of children
from low decile schools.

Families are provided with a recycled computer, internet access, training, and technical support.
Parents complete 20 hours of training on how to help their children with homework and pay a
small financial contribution before the computer goes home.

As the scheme has developed, parents have also embraced the learning experience for
themselves, so the focus has broadened to family literacy. In some regions the steering
committees have expanded their vision further to encompass community literacy, and schools
report increased school/home communication and more positive interaction between parents
and teacher

Business:
Computers speed up the business processes and systems with top quality. Today’s world
computer is important to use to start an online and offline business. A computer is important to
use in business to automate the manufacturing, marketing and, distribution process.

Computers help in research, production, distribution, marketing, banking, team management,

business automation, data storage, employee management and very helpful to increase
productivity at a lower cost, less time with high quality. That’s why the use of the computer is

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important in business. And the computer is the 1st and main tool in business that generates and
manages profits.

Computer help business to collect manages, calculate, arrange, and visualize customer data and
information by us computer applications such as Microsoft word, excel, lower PowerPoint and
tally. A computer helps to communicate faster with the customer by using the internet, online
communication tools, and internet phone system. It’s important for the administration of the big
or small organization and each field that manages resources and Opportunities.

Gaming:
The first part is dealing with definitions of computer games. Are they some forms of simulations,
sub-category of simulations, distinct from simulations, or simply an extension of traditional
games? Follows list of categories and genres of computer games and their main characteristics.
What are similarities and differences between computer games, educational games, video
games, digital games, traditional games and other forms of games?.

The next part is addressing the following questions: why, how and where we use computer games
in the educational process? According many scientific investigations computer games had
significant educational value and could be extremely useful if they become part of the school
curriculum. There are various computer games that create context in which students can develop
important skills. The use of computer games in educational contexts encourages active, critical,
autonomous and participated learning processes, engaging students in active forms of acquiring
knowledge and skills. The main purpose of computer games in not only entertainment; they can
combine the playful factor with pedagogical advantages, promoting changes in terms of
cognitive, behavioral and psychomotor skills in its users.

Follows explanations about the main benefits of using computer games as learning tools, related
with problem solving, 21st- century skills, integration of learning and assessment, collaboratives
and interactivity, addressing cognitive as well as affective learning issues, and motivation for
learning. The author elaborates how computer games are linked to acquisition of computer
literacy, improvement of cognitive and attention skills, and development of positive attitudes
toward technology. The limitation of introducing games in education and their disadvantages are
also pointed out.

Education:
Computer technology has had a deep impact on the education sector. Thanks to
computers, imparting education has become easier and much more interesting than
before. Owing to memory capacities of computers, large chunks of data can be stored in

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them. They enable quick processing of data with very less or no chances of errors in
processing. Networked computers aid quick communication and enable web access.
Storing documents on computers in the form of soft copies instead of hard ones, helps
save paper. The advantages of computers in education primarily include:

1. Storage of information

2. Quick data processing

3. Audio-visual aids in teaching

4. Better presentation of information

5. Access to the Internet

6. Quick communication between students, teachers and parents

Computer teaching plays a key role in the modern education system. Students find it
easier to refer to the Internet than searching for information in fat books. The process of
learning has gone beyond learning from prescribed textbooks. Internet is a much larger
and easier-to-access storehouse of information. When it comes to storing retrieved
information, it is easier done on computers than maintaining hand-written notes

Banking:
A bank can be defined as a financial institution, organization or a place that provides a financial
service, equally one can also defined bank as an establishment authorized by a government to
accept deposits, pay interest, clear checks, make loans, act as an intermediary in financial
transactions, allows the purchase of bills and checks or the purchase and sales of securities and
provide other financial services to its customers.

The first computers were people! That is, electronic computers (and the earlier mechanical
computers) were given this name because they performed the work that had previously been
assigned to people. “Computer” was originally a job title: It was used to describe those human
beings (predominantly women) whose job was to perform the repetitive calculations required to
compute such things as navigational tables, tide charts and planetary positions for astronomical
almanacs. A long time ago, people charged with the duty of collection and disbursements of tax
were encountering problems in calculations. In those days, the problems faced by the early
method of data processing involved the use of animal skin, feather, grains etc. were very difficult
for them to handle. These were later replaced using pens, inks, papers, chalk, etc. just to
supplement human efforts in counting, recording, manipulating, sorting, etc. of data these
methods were so boring, frustrating, time consuming and also associated with some errors.

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So further research continues, in France 1642 Blaise Pascal, at age 19 invented the Pascaline as
an aid to his father who was a tax collector in calculating columns of figures. The computer has
probably been introduced and the basic of its purpose is the processing of data into information.
The term data is a symbolic representation of facts about people, object or place. A computer is
a programmable electronic machine that performs high-speed mathematical or logical operation
or otherwise process information. In fact, the importance of information to an individual or
organization cannot be over emphasized, in carrying out day-to-day activities. Every individual,
organization needs information. Banks and other financial institution are heavy users of
computers in maintaining customer’s accounts, ledger, updating, electronic fund transfer and
processing of huge amount of cheques, credit cards, and the major transactions that takes place
daily. The upcoming automatic teller machines (ATM) already installed by most banks are the
most visible symbols of computer in the banking sector in Nigeria. They are of course everywhere
in Europe, America and Asia. The Automatic Teller machine (ATM) enable bank customer to
withdraw, recharge phones, transfer funds from their various accounts even when the bank is
closed physically. Each transaction made, the customer’s record is updated and he or she is
provided with a printout or notification. However, the use of computer in the banking sector can
be an efficient tool in speeding up the process and reducing the cost of producing and
undertaking figure works. More effective control procedure in computerized system can bring
about sales budgeting and credit control. Many credit cards, smart cards, master cards can also
be used to withdraw money at an ATM and the online banking against the credit limit extended
to the card. Customers keep their money in the bank safely and it is paid out when needed by
means of cheques and other ways.

Communication:
Technological advancement has greatly contributed to the enormous growth in the
communication sector. This is applied to all life facets. You will always turn to your computer for
help, whenever you want to acces and create information. The same case applies when tracking
the outcome of your learning. Below are the main benefits of computers in the communication
sector.

 Internet

There has been a rapid revolution worldwide on how individuals communicate with one another.
Email, web, and internet have influenced this. Earlier, one had to wait for weeks or days before
viewing information. Currently, information is being accessed at the speed of light. Emailing has
greatly transformed businesses. This is because of its bases of conduct, flexibility, speed, and
sharing of information. There is instant text email display as the processing of data by computers

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is 20 million bytes per second. Therefore, downloading and displaying of any email text is instant.

 Video chatting and VOIP

VOIP or Voice-Over-Internet Protocol has led to replacing the need of landline telephones in most
instances all over the world. These lines enable instant phone communication all over the
internet. Compared to fixed phone lines, they are cheaper. When speaking, you can able to see
who you are talking to and where they are at that particular time through video chatting. For
easy dialing and accessibility of contact details, VOIP helps in storage of this data.

 Social networking

Social networking sites include Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. These networks help people who
are over the network in generating of content and viewing it. A constant stream of information
and updates can be sent rather than having to send individual notes. The instant sending of notes
saves one a lot of time and money. As a result, communication has been taken a step farther
compared to email. There is the ability to make status updates and communicating life instantly
all over the world. In short time, people can read, respond and comment on sent notes.

Unlike lists used in email distribution, social networking is user-friendly and streamlined. Emails
are capabile of sending information to large groups of people. The disadvantage of emails was
that they would fail to reach in time or fail to reach the recipient. Interface precludes information
overloading that occurs when one attempts the same functions in an email program.

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  Routing

Though routing is not a personal computer, routers are used in directing communication traffic.
They are very necessary for correct and efficient distribution of another internet traffic, emails
and calls. “Packets” of electronic data are taken by routers and then used in connecting with the
intended persons. This can be used in warehouses or homes. Routing can only be done wherein
traffic; hubs are routed in the same place

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 Question#02.
When was first computer invented? Explain.
The word "computer" was first used in 1613 and originally described a human who performed
calculations or computations. The definition of a computer remained the same until the end of
the 19th century, when the industrial revolution gave rise to machines whose primary purpose
was calculating.

First mechanical computer or automatic computing engine concept:

In 1822, Charles Babbage conceptualized and began developing the Difference Engine,
considered to be the first automatic computing machine. The Difference Engine was capable of
computing several sets of numbers and making hard copies of the results. Babbage received
some help with development of the Difference Engine from Ada Lovelace, considered by many
to be the first computer programmer for her work and notes on the Difference Engine.
Unfortunately, because of funding, Babbage was never able to complete a full-scale functional
version of this machine. In June 1991, the London Science Museum completed the Difference
Engine No 2 for the bicentennial year of Babbage's birth and later completed the printing
mechanism in 2000.

Analytical EngineIn 1837, Charles Babbage proposed the first general mechanical computer, the
Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine contained an ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit), basic flow
control, punch cards (inspired by the Jacquard Loom), and integrated memory. It is the first
general-purpose computer concept. Unfortunately, because of funding issues, this computer was
also never built while Charles Babbage was alive. In 1910, Henry Babbage, Charles Babbage's
youngest son, was able to complete a portion of this machine and was able to perform basic
calculations.

First programmable computer

The Z1 was created by German Konrad Zuse in his parents' living room between 1936 and 1938.
It is considered to be the first electromechanical binary programmable computer, and the first
really functional modern computer.

First concepts of what we consider a modern computer

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The Turing machine was first proposed by Alan Turing in 1936 and became the foundation for
theories about computing and computers. The machine was a device that printed symbols on
paper tape in a manner that emulated a person following a series of logical instructions. Without
these fundamentals, we wouldn't have the computers we use today.

The first electric programmable computer:

Colossus Mark 2

The Colossus was the first electric programmable computer, developed by Tommy Flowers, and
was first demonstrated in December 1943. The Colossus was created to help the British code
breakers read encrypted German messages.

The first digital computer

Short for Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the ABC began development by Professor John Vincent
Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry in 1937. Its development continued until 1942 at the
Iowa State College (now Iowa State University).

The ABC was an electrical computer that used more than 300 vacuum tubes for digital
computation, including binary math and Boolean logic and had no CPU (was not programmable).
On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision that the ENIAC patent
by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly was invalid. In the decision, Larson named Atanasoff the
sole inventor.

The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania
and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800
square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. Although the Judge
ruled that the ABC computer was the first digital computer, many still consider the ENIAC to be
the first digital computer because it was fully functional

The first stored program computer:

First electronically stored program to be executed by a computer, written by Tom Kilburn in 1948
for the SSEM.

The first computer to electronically store and execute a program was the SSEM (Small-Scale
Experimental Machine), also known as the "Baby" or "Manchester Baby," in 1948. It was designed
by Frederic Williams, and built by his protégée, Tom Kilburn, with the assistance of Geoff Tootill,
at the University of Manchester, England. Kilburn wrote the first electronically-stored program,

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which finds the highest proper factor of an integer, using repeated subtraction rather than
division. Kilburn's program was executed on June 21, 1948.

The second stored-program computer was also British: the EDSAC, built and designed by Maurice
Wilkes at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England. The EDSAC
performed its first calculation on May 6, 1949. It was also the first computer to run a graphical
computer game, "OXO," an implementation of tic-tac-toe displayed on a 6-inch cathode ray tube.

EDSACManchester Mark 1

Around the same time, the Manchester Mark 1 was another computer that could run stored
programs. Built at the Victoria University of Manchester, the first version of the Mark 1 computer
became operational in April 1949. Mark 1 was used to run a program to search for Mersenne
primes for nine hours without error on June 16 and 17 that same year.

The first computer company:

The first computer company was the Electronic Controls Company and was founded in 1949 by
J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the same individuals who helped create the ENIAC computer.
The company was later renamed to EMCC or Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and released
a series of mainframe computers under the UNIVAC name.

First computer with program stored in memory:

UNIVAC 1101

First delivered to the United States government in 1950, the UNIVAC 1101 or ERA 1101 is
considered to be the first computer capable of storing and running a program from memory.

First commercial computer:

In 1942, Konrad Zuse begin working on the Z4 that later became the first commercial computer.
The computer was sold to Eduard Stiefel, a mathematician of the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology Zurich on July 12, 1950.

IBM's first computer

On April 7, 1953, IBM publicly introduced the 701, its first commercial scientific computer.

The first computer with RAM

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MIT introduces the Whirlwind machine on March 8, 1955, a revolutionary computer that was the
first digital computer with magnetic core RAM and real-time graphics.

Whirlwind machine

The first transistor computer

TransistorsThe TX-0 (Transistorized Experimental computer) is the first transistorized computer

to be demonstrated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956.

The first minicomputer

In 1960, Digital Equipment Corporation released its first of many PDP computers, the PDP-1.

The first desktop and mass-market computer

In 1964, the first desktop computer, the Programma 101, was unveiled to the public at the New
York World's Fair. It was invented by Pier Giorgio Perotto and manufactured by Olivetti. About
44,000 Programma 101 computers were sold, each with a price tag of $3,200.

In 1968, Hewlett Packard began marketing the HP 9100A, considered to be the first mass-
marketed desktop computer.

The first workstation

Although it was never sold, the first workstation is considered to be the Xerox Alto, introduced
in 1974. The computer was revolutionary for its time and included a fully functional computer,
display, and mouse. The computer operated like many computers today utilizing windows,
menus and icons as an interface to its operating system. Many of the computer's capabilities
were first demonstrated in The Mother of All Demos by Douglas Engelbart on December 9, 1968.

The first microprocessor

Intel introduces the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004 on November 15, 1971.

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The first microcomputer:
The Vietnamese-French engineer, André Truong Trong Thi, along with Francois Gernelle,
developed the Micral computer in 1973. Considered as the first microcomputer, it used the Intel
8008 processor and was the first commercial non-assembly computer. It originally sold for
$1,750.

The first personal computer

In 1975, Ed Roberts coined the term "personal computer" when he introduced the Altair 8800.
Although the first personal computer is considered by many to be the KENBAK-1, which was first
introduced for $750 in 1971. The computer relied on a series of switches for inputting data and
output data by turning on and off a series of lights.

Altair 8800 Computer

The first laptop or portable computer

IBM 5100The IBM 5100 is the first portable computer, which was released in September 1975.
The computer weighed 55-pounds and had a five inch CRT display, tape drive, 1.9 MHz PALM
processor, and 64 KB of RAM. In the picture is an ad of the IBM 5100 taken from a November
1975 issue of Scientific American.

The first truly portable computer or laptop is considered to be the Osborne I, which was released
in April 1981 and developed by Adam Osborne. The Osborne I weighed 24.5-pounds, had a 5-inch
display, 64 KB of memory, two 5 1/4" floppy drives, ran the CP/M 2.2 operating system, included
a modem, and cost $1,795.

The IBM PCD (PC Division) later released the IBM portable in 1984, its first portable computer
that weighed 30-pounds. Later in 1986, IBM PCD announced its first laptop computer, the PC
Convertible, weighing 12-pounds. Finally, in 1994, IBM introduced the IBM ThinkPad 775CD, the
first notebook with an integrated CD-ROM.

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The first Apple computer:
The Apple I (Apple 1) was the first Apple computer that originally sold for $666.66. The computer
kit was developed by Steve Wozniak in 1976 and contained a 6502 8-bit processor and 4 kb of
memory, which was expandable to 8 or 48 kb using expansion cards. Although the Apple I had a
fully assembled circuit board the kit still required a power supply, display, keyboard, and case to
be operational. Below is a picture of an Apple I from an advertisement by Apple.

Apple I computer

The first IBM personal computer:

IBM PC 5150IBM introduced its first personal computer, the IBM PC, in 1981. The computer was
code-named Acorn. It featured an 8088 processor, 16 KB of memory, which was expandable to
256 and used MS-DOS.

The first PC clone

The Compaq Portable is considered to be the first PC clone and was release in March 1983 by
Compaq. The Compaq Portable was 100% compatible with IBM computers and was capable of
running any software developed for IBM computers.

See our index of computer companies for information about manufacturers of IBM-compatible
computers.

The first multimedia computer:

In 1992, Tandy Radio Shack released the M2500 XL/2 and M4020 SX, among the first computers
to feature the MPC standard.

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