Tidak mau ketinggalan dari Intel yang semakin produktif menelurkan platform-platform baru di dunia notebook dan netbook, AMD sebagai pemegang pangsa pasar di bidang processor nomor dua di dunia, mengeluarkan platform PC baru. Platform PC ini ditujukan untuk kalangan profesional bisnis dengan nama Vision Pro. Demikian berita selengkapnya.

Vision Pro, Platform PC Bisnis Berbasis AMD
VIVAnews – Advanced Micro Devices menghadirkan platform Vision Pro yang didesain untuk PC komersial. Platform baru ini akan menghadirkan visual computing termasuk konfigurasi multi monitor dan juga fitur keamanan yang telah diperbaiki.
Meski platform didesain untuk desktop dan notebook, akan tetapi Vision Pro akan lebih dulu hadir untuk notebook.
Dukungan teknologi yang ada pada Vision Pro adalah Trusted Platform Module (TPM), Enhanced Virus Protection (EVP), client virtualization technology (AMD-V), dan juga jaminan dukungan konfigurasi multi monitor.
Untuk notebook, Vision Pro untuk platform mobile menggunakan prosesor Turion II atau Athlon II dengan chipset M880G atau M880MC yang memiliki grafis terintegrasi Radeon HD 4100 atau 4200. Bagi yang membutuhkan, notebook kelas atas Vision Pro juga tersedia dalam pilihan yang menggunakan grafis terpisah berbasis Radeon HD 5000 series.
“Dengan dukungan terbaru di fitur keamanan standar terbuka, dan juga performa yang dibutuhkan untuk aplikasi produktivitas, teknologi Vision Pro didesain untuk menyediakan kalangan bisnis sistem komputer yang memanfaatkan aplikasi-aplikasi berorientasi bisnis secara visual,” kata Nigel Dessau, Chief Marketing Officer AMD, pada keterangannya, 6 Januari 2009.
Saat ini AMD mengklaim bahwa kelebihan utama platform Vision Pro adalah dukungan terhadap konfigurasi multi monitor, fitur grafis yang kaya, dan juga harga yang tersedia dalam berbagai pilihan. Artinya, konfigurasi sistem berbasis AMD Vision Pro sangat beragam.
Sistem pertama yang memanfaatkan teknologi AMD Vision Pro antara lain adalah notebook HP ProBook series dan juga Lenovo ThinkPad x100e dan ThinkPad Edge.

artikel diambil dari http://teknologi.vivanews.com

Author : ENDAH, DIANA

Polwiltabes Surabaya merupakan salah satu dari berbagai instansi pemerintah yang bergerak dalam bidang keamanan dan ketertiban masyarakat untuk wilayah kota besar Surabaya merasa perlu memiliki sebuah sistem komputerisasi yang dapat membantu meningkatkan kinerja para personilnya di lapangan. Sehingga kami selaku penulis merancang satu sistem yang baru dengan tidak meninggalkan sistem yang lama, sistem yang baru ini lebih memiliki keunggulan dalam bidang GIS (Geographical Information System). Tujuan pembuatan program aplikasi ini adalah membantu pihak kepolisian dalam memantau kondisi keamanan Surabaya.

Keyword : polwiltabes surabaya, computerization, callcenter system, GIS

Sumber : http://repository.petra.ac.id/3324/

Author : GUNAWAN, ANDREAS

Perusahaan berbasis bisnis keluarga saat ini masih banyak yang menggunakan sistem manajemen bersifat tradisional. Meskipun zaman telah mengalami perubahan, juga teknologi terutama di bidang informasi telah berkembang dengan pesat, namun kebanyakan pimpinan dari perusahaan keluarga adalah mereka orang-orang lama yang tergolong tua dan kolot untuk melakukan perubahan. Di perusahaan yang dilakukan penelitian ini telah mengalami pergeseran pimpinan. Dimana pimpinan baru merupakan generasi muda yang energik dan open minded. Perubahan di berbagai bidang yang mendukung jalannya perusahaan, terutama di bidang pembukuan dan sistematis bekerja.

Keyword : system management, accounting, computerization

Sumber : http://repository.petra.ac.id/1551/

Menarik. Itulah satu kata yang keluar dari benak saya ketika membaca artikel ini. Microsoft, sebagai raksasa software dunia, mulai merambah ke format baru Flash, setelah sukses dengan software Silverlight.

Berikut artikel yang dimaksud.

Microsoft Lisensikan Format Baru Flash

Jumat, 11 Desember 2009 | 10:32 WIB

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com – Jika menggunakan Windows Vista, Anda mungkin tak asing dengan exFAT, alias Extended File Allocation Table. Sistem file terbaru dari Microsoft ini menyajikan lompatan dalam hal ukuran file yang bisa disimpan dalam perangkat elektronik consumer dan kecepatan aksesnya.

Dengan exFAT, perangkat memori berbasis flash seperti USB flash disk atau MP3 player, bisa menangani ukuran file jauh lebih besar, mulai dari 32GB sampai 256TB. Kartu SDXC (Secure Digital Extended Capacity) sekarang bisa mencapai laju transfer sejatinya yang 300MBps. Begitu kata Microsoft.

Nah, Microsoft sudah mengumumkan program lisensi baru untuk exFAT tersebut. “Ada ledakan dalam penggunaan file-file rich audio dan video,” kata David Kaefer (General Manager, Intellectual Property Licensing, Microsoft). “exFAT adalah sistem file ideal yang menyajikan pengantaran file audio dan video yang cepat dan handal. Ini adalah teknologi penting di Windows 7, dan sekarang kami melisensikannya secara luas ke industri. Kami ingin mendorong dan mendukung para mitra untuk membangun produk-produk yang berisi teknologi ini.”

“Sistem file exFAT file mendukung volume yang besar, file berukuran besar, dan tataletak on-disk yang urut secara lebih baik,“ kata James Taylor (President, SD Association). “Dan mendukung rencana SD Association tentang spesifikasi SDXC yang menyediakan laku transfer yang lebih cepat bagi konsumen, dukungan untuk file-file yang sangat besar dan portabilitas seamless di antara perangkat. Kami berharap bisa memadukan teknologi itu ke dalam produk-produk kami.”

Saat ini Microsoft sudah memiliki perjanjian lisensi exFAT dengan Sony, Canon dan Sanyo. SanDisk pun menyetujui adopsi exFAT file system di media berkapasitas ekstra besar.

WIEK, editor : WIEK

artikel diambil dari http://tekno.kompas.com

Recently, we were interacting with a staff from Mumbai’s Hinduja hospital and he was explaining us about the load on the hospitals. When I heard him using the word load again, I started wondering — this is one sector where a customer (patient) doesn’t often negotiate. Usually, hospital and pharmacy gets what they ask from the patients. Also, hospitals are becoming more and more a private property, still the insider talks about “load” on the hospital. Isn’t that an opportunity for them to contribute more and earn even more?

Perhaps, it is not so straight forward. Health care has always been short on skilled resources. Even if you have skilled resources they seem to rely more on vocational and technical knowledge about hospitals and treatment and they don’t try to see the complete or bigger picture. Like in any hospital every staff should have knowledge about effective waste management, they should also have minimum understanding of how finance and overall operation works. This will allow them to contribute strongly in minimizing the over all cost of treatment.

So, one thing we clearly understand that hospital needs to improve its effectiveness and hence productivity to be able to serve its customer at lower cost. The effectiveness again depends on how effectively the hospital is able to use its man power, money, material and equipments.

Lets take an example of equipments. It is obvious and more apparent that most hospital or health facilities have expensive equipment.
Some of them remains out of the order or the inventory list because of the insufficiency of the engineering department, improper maintenance, defective service contracts and so on. Many times even if the equipment is available for usage, the lack of proper knowledge of equipment and costs involved in keeping the equipment causes ineffective usage.
So, Hospitals must adapt the ways and methods to streamline and make more efficient their procurement, consumption and utilization control, inventory and records control and storage of equipments. The intended users must receive thorough training to utilize the equipment most effectively.

You know what, equipment is not even the biggest factor in effective operations. In fact, the quality of services in hospital totally depends on the quality of their human resources and man power. Specially, quality of a hospital is usually derived from the quality of nursing available in the hospital. Hence, it is important to conduct training periodically so that the employees and staff are aware of the new changes in technology and techniques. They should understand the science behind their work, they should have spirit to serve humanity and skill to perform their tasks effectively.

While understanding of science, having right spirit and skills are the base for quality of the service provided by Hospital, the Information Technology (IT) has started playing a significant role in enabling people to be more effective. Below are some of the immediate benefit that you get from usage of IT in health care:

1. you will need less staff to operate and manage.
2. decreases the paper work and enhances the accuracy.
3. it is easy to track, compile and get back the old data
4. it can store large amount of data and information, which means you don’t lose the historical information of your patients
5. you can compare and contrast the various process improvement strategies that you may have tried to implement
6. everyone using same data will ensure that people receives consistent information and hence your patients have more trust in your system

Well, by looking at the advantage of IT, no doubt you may like to get started with it immediately. However, just buying IT is not sufficient. You must develop a culture where people understand the benefit and they don’t look at it as one more tool which is going to waste their time. If they understand the bigger picture, which is providing effective health care to the patients, then you have half the battle won. Remaining resistance can be overcome through training and incentives.

So, how should you go ahead with computerization? It is no brainier. Identify the department which is possibly working independently at this moment. It is recommended that a single and significant department should be computerized first, because it easy to measure the benefits or achievement of the computerization. Starting with Outpatient Department (OPD) is a really good idea. Usually, any software providing solution for OPD should give you enough idea about how it is going to work for Inpatient and other departments like Pharmacy, Material Management, Laboratory, and even HR.

Did I mention about training? Oh yes, training and motivation must start immediately to make use of the new technology. Usually, hospitals have IT department, which owns the responsibility of conducting training related to software upgrades.

In nutshell, while health care is a sector, where we have just started accepting as one of the business, it is imperative to understand that its purpose is to provide invaluable service to the human being. Also, the effort must be put to enable the common people to avail the needed health care. At the same time if you have a corporate customer, who is looking for more services and more luxury then there is no reason why they should not pay more for the same.

Hope this post helps you in taking more effective decision.

The steps are planning and informed selecting of hardware, software, and training. I. Making the decision to computerize II. Choosing the correct tools A. Software B. Hardware C. New and old technology III. Installation and training In the normal course of a day our lives are affected by the technology of computers in ways we can only begin to imagine. “The word ubiquitous means ever-present or occurring everywhere. This term could be used to describe the use of the computer in the business”(Perry 11). The business world’s benefit alone is enough to make your head spin. Every time you go to the grocery store, the bank, the local ATM, or even the neighborhood gym you cannot help but benefit by the use of computers in modern society. The common civilians’ encounter with computers is not the only area where technology has changed our lives. Many fields in business such as accounting depend on the convenience, speed, accuracy, and reliability that computers have become known for. But not all companies are large enough to benefit from the use of computers

http://www.gazhoo.com/doc/1103/Business+Account+Computerization

Note that with this command will have only specified the structure of the record for a file which is to contain customer data. Therefore we should have some way of loading the customer records in the CUSTLIST file. For this purpose we will have to type the following command:

..APPEND

With this command we get a screen which provides a blank customer record. As the name implies, this command will append a record to our CUSTLIST file. Thus, it can be used whenever we want to add one more customer to customer list. With the customer we can add product fulfillment types. Product given to customer gives them product fulfillment or order fulfillment. We can add any criteria for that.

In the screen provided with above command, we now type the necessary details of a customer. The names of the fields are displayed on the screen to facilitate entry of data for a customer for which we wish to create a record in CUSTLIST file. After we type in all the required details about the customer and type e get another blank record in which we can enter data about next customer and so on. When we type right at the beginning of blank record we get back to dot prompt where we can issue a new dBASE III command.

When we start the dBASE III programme, it prompts by dot (.). Also when it finishes executing a given command, it writes dot in the first column of next line on the screen. Interaction with dBASE III package consists mainly of issuing appropriate commands against this dot prompt. Each dBASE III command starts with a key word (or verb) followed by certain parameters. The command for creating a file for customer data would be

..CREATE CUSTLIST

Note the keyword CREATE which is typed by the user against the dot prompt produce by dBASE III. CREATE command wants a parameter which will be used as a name for the file so created. The user can choose any name that he desires within the syntactic rules specified by the package. We shall henceforth omit such minor syntactic details of the package. We shall use the symbol to indicate enter or return key of the keyboard. In response to CERATE command, dBASE III will provide a screen where we can enter the above nine filed names alongwith their type characteristics.

Each record will have to contain details about a customer. What constitutes ‘the necessary details’ will depend mostly on what use we want to make to this data-base. When we create a customer file through dBASE III package, it will first want us to specify the record structure for the file. For a blinds company who are selling vertical blinds, roman shades products online. When they are creating their DBMS file, their criteria is different than for the company who are providing instant life insurance rates and life insurance quotes online.

For a customer file we want each record to have nine fields: one each for the items listed above. In dBASE III, it is necessary to give names to each of these nine fields so that they can be later referred to using these names. The field names which we have chosen are shown in the third column above. Apart from the name, we have to also indicate what type of data will be stored in the field and in certain cases number of characters to be reserved to hold the data for that field. We will want AMOUNTDUE and CRDLMT to hold numeric data and all other fields to hold text or character data. Now let us have a quick look at a dialogue in dBASE III for creating and using such a file.

In our last post we have discussed on Data Base Management System (DBMS) and today we are going to talk on DBMS packages.

Like other DBMS packages, dBASE III provides features for: 

1.      Creating data files on a computer.

2.      Maintaining these data files by way of providing functions for adding, deleting editing and updating a give set of data items.

3.      Generating reports based on the data files created through dBASE III

4.      Querying on those data files.

To develop an understanding of the features provided by dBASE III package, let us take a specific application and see how it could be implemented in dBASE III. Suppose we are operating a small business house which has 1000 customers. We are interested in maintaining a list of these customers and using this list for our day-to-day business operations. Obviously we will have to create a file which contains data about these 1000 customers. In this file there will be one record for each customer. Thus, we will have a file containing 1000 records.

The dBASE III package has attained its current popularity mainly for the following reason:

1.      It is easy to use and is simple. Its basic features can be learned in a couple of hours.

2.      It provides a very high level language interface which is command oriented. Some people consider it a fourth generation language. In lay man’s terms, fourth generation language means it is superior to standard programming languages like BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN and PASCAL; and it simplifies and sometimes even avoids programming in a conventional sense.

3.      Small business information systems can be easily implemented in a few days using this package. Insurance CRM or instant life insurance rates application can be implemented easily in small businesss.

4.      This package can be used as a tool to prototype large applications. Prototyping is useful for saving costs in implementing large applications. Parts of a large system may be implemented through dBASE III package to finalize specifications of what users want through the envisaged application and how these parts could possibly be implemented in their final form.

We will discuss some features of the DBMS packages in our next post.

Micro-computers are structurally similar to large computers in that they have the same basic components – CPU main memory, secondary memory and input/output devices. The most popular secondary memory device are floppy disk drives and fixed disks. Floppy disks store between 140 K Bytes to 1 Mega Byte = 1024 K Bytes (MB) while hard disks store 10 MB to 40 MB.

The main memory is made from several chips. These may be ROM or RAM chips.  ROM (Read Only Memory) chips contain instructions permanently written in the memory. The contents of these chips cannot be altered. RAM (Random Access Memory) Chips provide the memory that can be read from, written into and cleared.

Most micro-computers have between 16 K bytes and IMB memory. The typical word-size of micro-computers when they were introduced in business in the late seventies was B-bits. Today, the most common word-size is 16-bits. It is virtually certain that in the next few years 32-bit micro-computers will be very common although today their numbers are somewhat limited due to cost and scarcity of software. Dot matrix and daisy-wheel printers are popular printing devices on micro-computers.

A large computer provides a main memory capacity of up to 32 mega bytes, a processing power of 10 MIPS and supports a large number of disks and tapes. Disk capacities range from 100 MB to 1000 MB. It also allows simultaneous access to multiple users and supports a large number of input and output devices.

A super computer is the largest computer system available in the market. It provides a main memory capacity of up to 64 mega bytes and a processing speed of 20 MIPS. It also supports a large number of disks and tapes of enormous capacity for providing random access and serial access secondary memory. A super computer also allows multiple users to interact with the CPU simultaneously through multiple types of input devices. It also provides outputs in a variety of forms and supports a large number of output devices. Customer Relation Management System owner says that for their clients who are selling blinds, roller shades and woven wood shades online; they need to use high configuration computers.

Personal computers are used by managers for their own computing needs. Availability of a large number of user-friendly software packages on PCs have made them effective tools to support managerial decision-making. PCs have also encouraged distributed data processing. A super micro is used for commercial data processing and managerial applications. A large computer is necessary for very large data processing and data management applications. A large computer is necessary for very large data processing and data management applications. A super computer is primarily used for highly scientific and research purposes.

In the 1970s computers were classified into three categories, namely, super-computers, large computers and mini computers. But the invention of the micro-processor which gave birth to micro-computers in the late 70s has drastically changed the computing scene. A wide range of computers are available today in the market ranging from a personal computer to a super computer.

A personal computer (PC) is a micro-computer which has its entire central processing unit on a single micro-processor chip. A PC provides a main memory capacity upto 640 kilo bytes and a processing power of 0.5 MIPS. It supports one or 2 diskette drives of 360 KB each for random access secondary memory. A PC usually comes with a standard key board, a visual display unit and a dot matrix printer. A PC is usually operated by a single user.

A super mico-computer has its entire central processing unit on a very powerful micro-processor, provides a main memory capacity of upto 16 mega bytes, has a processing power of 2 to 3 MIPS, supports Winchester disks of capacity 20 to 80 mega bytes and allows simultaneously access to multiple users. Today’s super micro is actually replacing yesterday’s mini computers which provide almost the same computing power it nit less, but based on a different technology.

We are talking computers in management. We talked evaluation of computers and computer softwares in our previous talk. We talked about operating system in our last post, today we continue with that. We talked the drawback of idling the CPU was overcome with the introduction of overlapped processing.

For example why not take up input operation of job 2 and the output operation of job 1 simultaneously? This and similar considerations gave rise to the concept of multi-programming. A multi-programming operating system handles multiple jobs simultaneously by overlapping the input, output and processing cycles of various jobs.

This operating system was introduced along with third generation computers and is still very popular. It has replaced the earlier batch processing (serial) operating system. With multi-programming a CPU’s utilization is increased and hence jobs get executed faster on an average. However a multi-programming operating system is more complex hardware to support it.

Other types of operating systems which are popular today are multi-processing operating systems and real time operating systems. A multi-processing operating system uses multiple CPU’s to process multiple jobs. A real time operating system is a very different type of operating system, because it is used for different type of applications, i.e., real time applications such as airlines reservations, process control, etc.

Utilities

Utility programmes are those which are very often requested by many application programmes. mailing leads and marketing list are few example of such utility programmes which are used in large by industry. A few examples are:

SORT/MERGE for sorting large volumes of data and merging them into a single sort list like mortgage mailing list.

Transfer programmes for transforming contents from one medium to another, e.g., disk to tape, tape to disk, etc.

An operating system is the most important system software and is required to operate a computer system. An operating system manages a computer’s resources very effectively, takes care of scheduling multiple jobs for execution and manages the flow of data and instructions between the input/output units and the main memory.

Operating systems became a part of computer software with the second generation computers. Since then operating systems have undergone several revisions and modifications in order to achieve a better utilization of computer resources. Advances in the field of computer hardware have also helped the development of more efficient operating systems.

The first operating system called batch processing (serial) operating system was developed for the second generation computers; This operating system executes jobs serially one after another from a batch of jobs submitted for execution. The central processing unit is kept busy only during the processing cycle of a job and it idles during the input and output operations.

The above drawback of idling the CPU was overcome with the introduction of overlapped processing. For example why not take up input operation of job 2 and the output operation of job 1 simultaneously? This and similar considerations gave rise to the concept of multi-programming. A multi-programming operating system handles multiple jobs simultaneously by overlapping the input, output and processing cycles of various jobs.

A language translator is system software which will translate a computer programme written by humans into a machine understandable form. The most elemental form of programming uses only the binary digits 0, 1 which is directly understood by the electronic circuits. A programme written using only binary digits is called a machine language programme.

Assembly language provide a significant improvement over machine language. Assembly language programmes are written using mnemonic codes like ADD, STORE, etc., rather than their machine language representations in binary digits. Therefore programming in assembly language is easier. Active directory and active directory management or active directory tool can be made with such programming. However, it needs to be translated into machine language codes. This translation is done by an assembler. Both machine language and assembly language programmes are machine dependent. This means that a programme written for one machine cannot be used in another machine.

High level languages, which are closer to English overcame the drawback of machine dependence. A few high level languages are FORTRAN, BASIC, PASCAL, COBOL etc. These languages relive the programmers from being machine specific. However a programme written in a high level language needs to be translated into machine language codes before execution. This translation is done either through compilers or through interpreters.

A compiler is a translator which reads an entire programme written in a high level language and coverts it into machine language codes. An interpreter on the otherhand, is a translator which interprets statement by statement, any programme written in a high level language. An interpreter is a very effective tools for programme development as it checks for errors statement by statement in an interactive mode. Exchange Management and Exchange Tools require interpreter.  This allows the programmer to correct the errors statement by statement as he enters them. A compiler on the otherhand, will request the user to enter the entire programming statement and then it will check for errors. Basic language provides a compiler and an interpreter.

Other language such as Fortran, cobol and Pascal had only compolers initially. However interpreters for these high level languages are also becoming available, partly due to the popularity enjoyed by micro-computers in the field of computing.

Today we are going to discuss on Computer Software part. This is a most important topic for Computers. Computer software consists pf sets of programmed instructions which enable the hardware units to perform. Programming a computer to perform has always been a very difficult task. The first electronic computer was programmed using wired panels. Today’s computers are programmed using software.

Computer software can be broadly classified into two categories – System Software and Application Software. System software is a set of instructions to the machine hardware to interpret and execute application software. Application software is a set of programming instructions for specific applications like payroll accounting, inventory control, etc. System software consists of language translators [called compilers (compiles program-wise), interpreters (compiles like-wise) and assemblers (converts semi-machine-language, macro-instructions, to machine language)], operating systems, utilities and special purpose software.

Computer software or just software is a general term used to describe a collection of computer programs, procedures and documentation that perform some tasks on a computer system. “Software” is sometimes used in a broader context to mean anything which is not hardware but which is used with hardware, such as film, tapes and records. 

We will discuss on languages translator in next post.

blinds, roller shades, woven wood shades

Still today we have discussed for different types of the computer hardware devices. Form last few days we are talking on input and output devices which is most important part of the computer hardware. The input or output units of a computer system establish the communication between the system and its users. A large number of input and output units are available in the market. A few of them are discussed in this note.

Most recent trend for data input is towards source data automation. The equipments used for source data automation capture data as a by-product of a business activity thereby completely eliminating manual input of data. Some examples are:

1. Magnetic ink character recognition devices are used by the banking industry to read the account numbers on cheques directly and do the necessary processing.
2. Optical mark recognition devices can sense marks on computer readable papers.

This king of device is used by academic and testing institutions to grade aptitude tests where candidates mark the correct alternatives on a special sheet of paper. These answer sheets are then directly read by the optical mark recognition devices and the information sent to a computer for processing.

We talked about input or output units of a computer system. Input and output establish the communication between the system and its users. A large number of input and output units are available in the market. A few of them we are discussing here. We talked about hard disk in our previous post. Today we are going to talk about printer.

A printer is a peripheral which produces a hard copy of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media. Printers are purely output devices. Printers are classified into line printers and dot matrix printers. A line printer prints one line of information simultaneously, whereas a dot matrix printer prints one character at a time. A dot matrix printer uses a 5 X 7 or 7 X 9 dot matrix formation to represent each character. Dot matrix printers therefore provide a broken appearance to the characters, whereas a line printer provides a better quality output. A line printer has a speed of about 2000 lines per minute whereas a dot matrix printer has a lower speed of approximately 100 characters per second. If we talke about credit card printer than they need to have a merchant accounts with which credit card processing done. In big shopping mall credit card machine are available there.  With credit card software  and credit card terminal they use credit card printer  to for day to day functions.

Daisy wheel printers and letter quality printers are also character printers. But they produce excellent quality output. However, they are more expensive and slower than dot matrix printers. All the printers discussed so far are called impact printers as they make physical contact with paper while printing. A no impact printer on the other hand transfers information to paper without any physical contact. Example of no impact printers is laser printers, xerographic printers, electrostatic printers, etc.

Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a USB cable to a computer which serves as a document source. Some printers, commonly known as network printers, have built-in network interfaces (typically wireless or Ethernet), and can serve as a hardcopy device for any user on the network. Individual printers are often designed to support both local and network connected users at the same time.

Terminals have become very popular interactive input and output units. A terminal, when connected to a CPU, sends data and instructions directly into the computer. Terminals can be classified into two types, namely, hard copy terminals and soft copy terminals. A hard copy terminal provides a print out on paper whereas a soft copy terminal provides a visual display on a screen. A soft copy terminal is also known as a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) terminal.

Key-to-tape, key-to-disk and key-to-diskette are stand alone data entry stations. There units usually have a small processor attached to a key board and a visual display unit. The processor checks for the accuracy of data at the time of entry. The screen displays what is being entered. There facilities are highly desirable for a data processing centre. Hence most of the data processing centres are switching over from punched card input to data entry stations.

A graphic display terminal displays information in both character and graphic forms. These are extensively used for CAD/CAM (computer aided design/computer aided manufacture) applications.

A potter is used to obtain printed copies of graphic outputs. It is used by architects and designers to produce blueprints of their design on paper.

Still today we have already discussed different computer hardware parts. In our last talk we have discussed on magnetic disk. The Diskettes and Winchester disks provide random access memory on micro-computers. A diskette is a smaller disk of 5¼ inch in diameter. It provides a storage capacity of 360 KB and an average access time of 180 milli seconds. Today we are going to discuss one other and important part of computer hardware and that is input and Output devices.  

Input and Output Devices 

The input or output units of a computer system establish the communication between the system and its users. A large number of input and output units are available in the market. A few of them are discussed in this note.

Punched card is the most ancient (few decades old) input medium. Instruction and data punched on cards are transmitted into a computer through a card reader. A printed card had survived a whole century because of its simplicity. But it is on its way out now. Punched cards are being replaced by terminals which provide direct data entry. In next post we will discuss briefly on input and output devices.

roman shades, vertical blinds, window blinds

Each recording surface is divided into a series of concentric circles called tracks and each track is further divided into sectors. The capacity of each sector whether it is on the inner most track or outer most track is a constant. One important characteristic of a disk drive is the access time which represents the time needed to access the desired record from a disk. Access time consists of two components, namely, seek time and rotational delay. Seek time represents the time required to seek the desired track on the desired recording surface. This involves a movement of the access arm, which supports the read/write head. Rotational delay represents the time required for the rotating disk to position the desired sector under the read/write head. Access times of 35 milli seconds are common. Disk packs are classified into three types, namely, removable disks, fixed disks and Winchester disks. 

A removable disk pack, as the name indicates, can be transported and replaced. A fixed disk pack on the other hand, cannot be removed or transported or replaced. However, it provides a quicker access time. A disk storage capacity of 600-1000 MB is very common. Winchester disks are a special type of hard disks and are supported mainly by micro-computers. A Winchester disk provides a storage capacity in the range of 10 MB – 80 MB.