Computer systems

• A computer system is a complete computer installation including hardware, software, users, procedures and data.
• A computer is an electronic device capable of executing a set of instructions or a program.
• the differences between a computer and a computer system is:

  • a computer system includes hardware, software, users and other devices but a computer is only a single hardware with no software
• the five types of computer systems:

  • supercomputers
  • mainframes
  • desktop systems
  • mobile devices
  • embedded devices
• A supercomputer is a computer system that is capable of performing extremely complex tasks in a very short amount of time.
• The speed of a computer is measured in FLOPS
• FLOPS stands for floating point operations per second.
• A mainframe is a large scale, powerful computer that is used for large scale processing.
• The CPU is the brains of the computer where the program instructions are processed or carried out.
• Backing storage is the computers secondary storage
• an example of backing storage is a hard drive, flash drive, or optical disk.
• Supercomputers are usually found in research environments and very large specialist organisations.
• Mainframe computers are supplied by IBM, Unisys and fujistu.
• Mainframes are used primarily for transaction processing.
• a desktop system is a computer system small enough to fit on a desk buy powerful enough for common business tasks
• A general purpose computing system is a computing system suitable for undertaking a wide variety of tasks.
• A mobile device are computing systems that are small enough to be carried around.
• Examples of moblie devices are:

  • laptops
  • phone
• A special purpose computer is a computer system designed to perform a specific task.
• An embedded device is a special purpose computer that carries out a specific function within a larger electrical system