1.
Software developer
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A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process, including the research, design, programming, and testing of computer software. Other job titles which are used with similar meanings are programmer, software analyst. According to developer Eric Sink, the differences between system design, software development, and programming are more apparent, even more so that developers become systems architects, those who design the multi-leveled architecture or component interactions of a large software system. In a large company, there may be employees whose sole responsibility consists of one of the phases above. In smaller development environments, a few people or even an individual might handle the complete process. The word software was coined as a prank as early as 1953, before this time, computers were programmed either by customers, or the few commercial computer vendors of the time, such as UNIVAC and IBM. The first company founded to provide products and services was Computer Usage Company in 1955. The software industry expanded in the early 1960s, almost immediately after computers were first sold in mass-produced quantities, universities, government, and business customers created a demand for software. Many of these programs were written in-house by full-time staff programmers, some were distributed freely between users of a particular machine for no charge. Others were done on a basis, and other firms such as Computer Sciences Corporation started to grow. The computer/hardware makers started bundling operating systems, systems software and programming environments with their machines, new software was built for microcomputers, so other manufacturers including IBM, followed DECs example quickly, resulting in the IBM AS/400 amongst others. The industry expanded greatly with the rise of the computer in the mid-1970s. In the following years, it created a growing market for games, applications. DOS, Microsofts first operating system product, was the dominant operating system at the time, by 2014 the role of cloud developer had been defined, in this context, one definition of a developer in general was published, Developers make software for the world to use. The job of a developer is to crank out code -- fresh code for new products, code fixes for maintenance, code for business logic, bus factor Software Developer description from the US Department of Labor
2.
Autodesk
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Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartered in San Rafael, California, and features a gallery of its customers work in its San Francisco building, the company was founded in 1982 by John Walker, a coauthor of the first versions of AutoCAD, the companys flagship computer-aided design software. Its AutoCAD and Revit software is used by architects, engineers, and structural designers to design, draft. Autodesk software has been used in fields, from the New York Freedom Tower to Tesla electric cars. The companys Revit line of software for Building Information Modeling is designed to let users explore the planning, construction, Autodesks Media and Entertainment division creates software for visual effects, color grading, and editing as well as animation, game development, and design visualization. 3ds Max and Maya are both 3D animation software used in visual effects and game development. Autodesk Suites, Subscription and Web Services, which includes Autodesk Cloud, Autodesk Labs, in what was seen as an unusual step for a maker of high-end business software, Autodesk began offering AutoCAD LT2012 for Mac through the Apple Mac App Store. The products from the group include 123D, Fluid FX, Homestyler, Pixlr, users range from children, students and artists to makers and DIYers. The Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry group is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, in a LEED Platinum building designed, Autodesks architecture, engineering, and construction solutions include AutoCAD-based design and documentation software such as AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD MEP, and AutoCAD Civil 3D. Their flagship product for relational Building information modeling is Revit, Revit is available as Revit Architecture, Revit Structure, Revit MEP or an all-in-one product. Projects that have used software from the Autodesk AEC division include the NASA Ames building, the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the Shanghai Tower, Autodesks manufacturing industry group is headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Autodesk’s Media and Entertainment Division is based in Montreal, Quebec and it was established in 1999 after Autodesk, Inc. acquired Discreet Logic, Inc. and merged its operations with Kinetix. In January 2006, Autodesk acquired Alias, a developer of 3D graphics technology, in October 2008, Autodesk acquired the Softimage brand from Avid. The principal product offerings from the Media and Entertainment Division are the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suites, which include Maya, Softimage, 3ds Max, Mudbox, Smoke, Flame, much of Avatars visual effects were created with Autodesk media and entertainment software. Autodesk software enabled Avatar director James Cameron to aim a camera at actors wearing motion-capture suits in a studio, in 2011, Autodesk acquired a cloud-based set of image tools and utilities called Pixlr. Autodesk develops and purchased many specific-purpose renderers but many Autodesk products are bundled with third-party renderers such as NVIDIA MentalRay or Iray, Autodesk Raytracer - a simple pathtracing renderer which is based on Opticore technology. Maya Vector - a vector based on Electric Rains RAViX technology. The problem with this part of Autodesks history is that it was a time of discovery in computer graphics, in this sense Lightscape was more than just another product, it was an essential part of the development of rendering technology generally, and part of its evolution
3.
Software release life cycle
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Usage of the alpha/beta test terminology originated at IBM. As long ago as the 1950s, IBM used similar terminology for their hardware development, a test was the verification of a new product before public announcement. B test was the verification before releasing the product to be manufactured, C test was the final test before general availability of the product. Martin Belsky, a manager on some of IBMs earlier software projects claimed to have invented the terminology, IBM dropped the alpha/beta terminology during the 1960s, but by then it had received fairly wide notice. The usage of beta test to refer to testing done by customers was not done in IBM, rather, IBM used the term field test. Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the project before formal testing. These activities can include requirements analysis, software design, software development, in typical open source development, there are several types of pre-alpha versions. Milestone versions include specific sets of functions and are released as soon as the functionality is complete, the alpha phase of the release life cycle is the first phase to begin software testing. In this phase, developers generally test the software using white-box techniques, additional validation is then performed using black-box or gray-box techniques, by another testing team. Moving to black-box testing inside the organization is known as alpha release, alpha software can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version, in general, external availability of alpha software is uncommon in proprietary software, while open source software often has publicly available alpha versions. The alpha phase usually ends with a freeze, indicating that no more features will be added to the software. At this time, the software is said to be feature complete, Beta, named after the second letter of the Greek alphabet, is the software development phase following alpha. Software in the stage is also known as betaware. Beta phase generally begins when the software is complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs. Software in the phase will generally have many more bugs in it than completed software, as well as speed/performance issues. The focus of beta testing is reducing impacts to users, often incorporating usability testing, the process of delivering a beta version to the users is called beta release and this is typically the first time that the software is available outside of the organization that developed it. Beta version software is useful for demonstrations and previews within an organization
4.
Operating system
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An operating system is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. All computer programs, excluding firmware, require a system to function. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer – from cellular phones, the dominant desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 83. 3%. MacOS by Apple Inc. is in place, and the varieties of Linux is in third position. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors, other specialized classes of operating systems, such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. A single-tasking system can run one program at a time. Multi-tasking may be characterized in preemptive and co-operative types, in preemptive multitasking, the operating system slices the CPU time and dedicates a slot to each of the programs. Unix-like operating systems, e. g. Solaris, Linux, cooperative multitasking is achieved by relying on each process to provide time to the other processes in a defined manner. 16-bit versions of Microsoft Windows used cooperative multi-tasking, 32-bit versions of both Windows NT and Win9x, used preemptive multi-tasking. Single-user operating systems have no facilities to distinguish users, but may allow multiple programs to run in tandem, a distributed operating system manages a group of distinct computers and makes them appear to be a single computer. The development of networked computers that could be linked and communicate with each other gave rise to distributed computing, distributed computations are carried out on more than one machine. When computers in a work in cooperation, they form a distributed system. The technique is used both in virtualization and cloud computing management, and is common in large server warehouses, embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded computer systems. They are designed to operate on small machines like PDAs with less autonomy and they are able to operate with a limited number of resources. They are very compact and extremely efficient by design, Windows CE and Minix 3 are some examples of embedded operating systems. A real-time operating system is a system that guarantees to process events or data by a specific moment in time. A real-time operating system may be single- or multi-tasking, but when multitasking, early computers were built to perform a series of single tasks, like a calculator. Basic operating system features were developed in the 1950s, such as resident monitor functions that could run different programs in succession to speed up processing
5.
Microsoft Windows
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Microsoft Windows is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. Active Windows families include Windows NT, Windows Embedded and Windows Phone, defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows 10 Mobile is an active product, unrelated to the defunct family Windows Mobile. Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20,1985, Microsoft Windows came to dominate the worlds personal computer market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984. Apple came to see Windows as an encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa. On PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system, however, in 2014, Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android, because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2014, the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold and this comparison however may not be fully relevant, as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms. As of September 2016, the most recent version of Windows for PCs, tablets, smartphones, the most recent versions for server computers is Windows Server 2016. A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console, Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has registered several trademarks each of which denote a family of Windows operating systems that target a specific sector of the computing industry. It now consists of three operating system subfamilies that are released almost at the time and share the same kernel. Windows, The operating system for personal computers, tablets. The latest version is Windows 10, the main competitor of this family is macOS by Apple Inc. for personal computers and Android for mobile devices. Windows Server, The operating system for server computers, the latest version is Windows Server 2016. Unlike its clients sibling, it has adopted a strong naming scheme, the main competitor of this family is Linux. Windows PE, A lightweight version of its Windows sibling meant to operate as an operating system, used for installing Windows on bare-metal computers. The latest version is Windows PE10.0.10586.0, Windows Embedded, Initially, Microsoft developed Windows CE as a general-purpose operating system for every device that was too resource-limited to be called a full-fledged computer. The following Windows families are no longer being developed, Windows 9x, Microsoft now caters to the consumers market with Windows NT. Windows Mobile, The predecessor to Windows Phone, it was a mobile operating system
6.
MacOS
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Within the market of desktop, laptop and home computers, and by web usage, it is the second most widely used desktop OS after Microsoft Windows. Launched in 2001 as Mac OS X, the series is the latest in the family of Macintosh operating systems, Mac OS X succeeded classic Mac OS, which was introduced in 1984, and the final release of which was Mac OS9 in 1999. An initial, early version of the system, Mac OS X Server 1.0, was released in 1999, the first desktop version, Mac OS X10.0, followed in March 2001. In 2012, Apple rebranded Mac OS X to OS X. Releases were code named after big cats from the release up until OS X10.8 Mountain Lion. Beginning in 2013 with OS X10.9 Mavericks, releases have been named after landmarks in California, in 2016, Apple rebranded OS X to macOS, adopting the nomenclature that it uses for their other operating systems, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS. The latest version of macOS is macOS10.12 Sierra, macOS is based on technologies developed at NeXT between 1985 and 1997, when Apple acquired the company. The X in Mac OS X and OS X is pronounced ten, macOS shares its Unix-based core, named Darwin, and many of its frameworks with iOS, tvOS and watchOS. A heavily modified version of Mac OS X10.4 Tiger was used for the first-generation Apple TV, Apple also used to have a separate line of releases of Mac OS X designed for servers. Beginning with Mac OS X10.7 Lion, the functions were made available as a separate package on the Mac App Store. Releases of Mac OS X from 1999 to 2005 can run only on the PowerPC-based Macs from the time period, Mac OS X10.5 Leopard was released as a Universal binary, meaning the installer disc supported both Intel and PowerPC processors. In 2009, Apple released Mac OS X10.6 Snow Leopard, in 2011, Apple released Mac OS X10.7 Lion, which no longer supported 32-bit Intel processors and also did not include Rosetta. All versions of the system released since then run exclusively on 64-bit Intel CPUs, the heritage of what would become macOS had originated at NeXT, a company founded by Steve Jobs following his departure from Apple in 1985. There, the Unix-like NeXTSTEP operating system was developed, and then launched in 1989 and its graphical user interface was built on top of an object-oriented GUI toolkit using the Objective-C programming language. This led Apple to purchase NeXT in 1996, allowing NeXTSTEP, then called OPENSTEP, previous Macintosh operating systems were named using Arabic numerals, e. g. Mac OS8 and Mac OS9. The letter X in Mac OS Xs name refers to the number 10 and it is therefore correctly pronounced ten /ˈtɛn/ in this context. However, a common mispronunciation is X /ˈɛks/, consumer releases of Mac OS X included more backward compatibility. Mac OS applications could be rewritten to run natively via the Carbon API, the consumer version of Mac OS X was launched in 2001 with Mac OS X10.0. Reviews were variable, with praise for its sophisticated, glossy Aqua interface
7.
IOS
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IOS is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the system that presently powers many of the companys mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad. It is the second most popular operating system globally after Android. IPad tablets are also the second most popular, by sales, originally unveiled in 2007 for the iPhone, iOS has been extended to support other Apple devices such as the iPod Touch and the iPad. As of January 2017, Apples App Store contains more than 2.2 million iOS applications,1 million of which are native for iPads and these mobile apps have collectively been downloaded more than 130 billion times. The iOS user interface is based upon direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures, interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. Internal accelerometers are used by applications to respond to shaking the device or rotating it in three dimensions. Apple has been praised for incorporating thorough accessibility functions into iOS, enabling users with vision. Major versions of iOS are released annually, the current version, iOS10, was released on September 13,2016. In iOS, there are four layers, the Core OS, Core Services, Media. In 2005, when Steve Jobs began planning the iPhone, he had a choice to either shrink the Mac, forstall was also responsible for creating a software development kit for programmers to build iPhone apps, as well as an App Store within iTunes. The operating system was unveiled with the iPhone at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 9,2007, and released in June of that year. At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed, iPhone runs OS X and runs applications, but at the time of the iPhones release. Initially, third-party native applications were not supported, Steve Jobs reasoning was that developers could build web applications through the Safari web browser that would behave like native apps on the iPhone. In October 2007, Apple announced that a native Software Development Kit was under development, on March 6,2008, Apple held a press event, announcing the iPhone SDK. The iOS App Store was opened on July 10,2008 with an initial 500 applications available.2 million in January 2017, as of March 2016,1 million apps are natively compatible with the iPad tablet computer. These apps have collectively been downloaded more than 130 billion times, App intelligence firm Sensor Tower has estimated that the App Store will reach 5 million apps by the year 2020. On September 5,2007, Apple released the iPod Touch, Apple also sold more than one million iPhones during the 2007 holiday season
8.
Android (operating system)
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Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google, based on the Linux kernel and designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In addition to devices, Google has further developed Android TV for televisions, Android Auto for cars. Variants of Android are also used on notebooks, game consoles, digital cameras, beginning with the first commercial Android device in September 2008, the operating system has gone through multiple major releases, with the current version being 7.0 Nougat, released in August 2016. Android applications can be downloaded from the Google Play store, which features over 2.7 million apps as of February 2017, Android has been the best-selling OS on tablets since 2013, and runs on the vast majority of smartphones. In September 2015, Android had 1.4 billion monthly active users, Android is popular with technology companies that require a ready-made, low-cost and customizable operating system for high-tech devices. The success of Android has made it a target for patent, Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White. Rubin described the Android project as tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are aware of its owners location. The early intentions of the company were to develop an operating system for digital cameras. Despite the past accomplishments of the founders and early employees, Android Inc. operated secretly and that same year, Rubin ran out of money. Steve Perlman, a friend of Rubin, brought him $10,000 in cash in an envelope. In July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc. for at least $50 million and its key employees, including Rubin, Miner and White, joined Google as part of the acquisition. Not much was known about Android at the time, with Rubin having only stated that they were making software for mobile phones, at Google, the team led by Rubin developed a mobile device platform powered by the Linux kernel. Google marketed the platform to handset makers and carriers on the promise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system, Google had lined up a series of hardware components and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation. Speculation about Googles intention to enter the communications market continued to build through December 2006. In September 2007, InformationWeek covered an Evalueserve study reporting that Google had filed several patent applications in the area of mobile telephony, the first commercially available smartphone running Android was the HTC Dream, also known as T-Mobile G1, announced on September 23,2008. Since 2008, Android has seen numerous updates which have improved the operating system, adding new features. Each major release is named in order after a dessert or sugary treat, with the first few Android versions being called Cupcake, Donut, Eclair. In 2010, Google launched its Nexus series of devices, a lineup in which Google partnered with different device manufacturers to produce new devices and introduce new Android versions
9.
Computer-aided design
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Computer-aided design is the use of computer systems to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. CAD software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, CAD output is often in the form of electronic files for print, machining, or other manufacturing operations. The term CADD is also used and its use in designing electronic systems is known as electronic design automation, or EDA. In mechanical design it is known as mechanical design automation or computer-aided drafting, however, it involves more than just shapes. CAD may be used to design curves and figures in space, or curves, surfaces. CAD is also used to produce computer animation for special effects in movies, advertising and technical manuals. The modern ubiquity and power of computers means that even perfume bottles, because of its enormous economic importance, CAD has been a major driving force for research in computational geometry, computer graphics, and discrete differential geometry. The design of models for object shapes, in particular, is occasionally called computer-aided geometric design. Eventually CAD provided the designer with the ability to perform engineering calculations, during this transition, calculations were still performed either by hand or by those individuals who could run computer programs. CAD was a change in the engineering industry, where draftsmen, designers. It did not eliminate departments, as much as it merged departments and empowered draftsman, CAD is just another example of the pervasive effect computers were beginning to have on industry. Current computer-aided design software packages range from 2D vector-based drafting systems to 3D solid, modern CAD packages can also frequently allow rotations in three dimensions, allowing viewing of a designed object from any desired angle, even from the inside looking out. Some CAD software is capable of mathematical modeling, in which case it may be marketed as CAD. CAD technology is used in the design of tools and machinery and in the drafting and design of all types of buildings and it can also be used to design objects. Furthermore, many CAD applications now offer advanced rendering and animation capabilities so engineers can better visualize their product designs, 4D BIM is a type of virtual construction engineering simulation incorporating time or schedule related information for project management. CAD has become an important technology within the scope of computer-aided technologies, with benefits such as lower product development costs. CAD enables designers to layout and develop work on screen, print it out, computer-aided design is one of the many tools used by engineers and designers and is used in many ways depending on the profession of the user and the type of software in question. Document management and revision control using Product Data Management, potential blockage of view corridors and shadow studies are also frequently analyzed through the use of CAD
10.
Software license
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A software license is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law all software is copyright protected, in code as also object code form. The only exception is software in the public domain, most distributed software can be categorized according to its license type. Two common categories for software under copyright law, and therefore with licenses which grant the licensee specific rights, are proprietary software and free, unlicensed software outside the copyright protection is either public domain software or software which is non-distributed, non-licensed and handled as internal business trade secret. Contrary to popular belief, distributed unlicensed software is copyright protected. Examples for this are unauthorized software leaks or software projects which are placed on public software repositories like GitHub without specified license. As voluntarily handing software into the domain is problematic in some international law domains, there are also licenses granting PD-like rights. Therefore, the owner of a copy of software is legally entitled to use that copy of software. Hence, if the end-user of software is the owner of the respective copy, as many proprietary licenses only enumerate the rights that the user already has under 17 U. S. C. §117, and yet proclaim to take away from the user. Proprietary software licenses often proclaim to give software publishers more control over the way their software is used by keeping ownership of each copy of software with the software publisher. The form of the relationship if it is a lease or a purchase, for example UMG v. Augusto or Vernor v. Autodesk. The ownership of goods, like software applications and video games, is challenged by licensed. The Swiss based company UsedSoft innovated the resale of business software and this feature of proprietary software licenses means that certain rights regarding the software are reserved by the software publisher. Therefore, it is typical of EULAs to include terms which define the uses of the software, the most significant effect of this form of licensing is that, if ownership of the software remains with the software publisher, then the end-user must accept the software license. In other words, without acceptance of the license, the end-user may not use the software at all, one example of such a proprietary software license is the license for Microsoft Windows. The most common licensing models are per single user or per user in the appropriate volume discount level, Licensing per concurrent/floating user also occurs, where all users in a network have access to the program, but only a specific number at the same time. Another license model is licensing per dongle which allows the owner of the dongle to use the program on any computer, Licensing per server, CPU or points, regardless the number of users, is common practice as well as site or company licenses
11.
Technical drawing
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Technical drawing, drafting or drawing, is the act and discipline of composing drawings that visually communicate how something functions or is constructed. Technical drawing is essential for communicating ideas in industry and engineering, to make the drawings easier to understand, people use familiar symbols, perspectives, units of measurement, notation systems, visual styles, and page layout. Together, such conventions constitute a language and help to ensure that the drawing is unambiguous. Many of the symbols and principles of drawing are codified in an international standard called ISO128. The need for communication in the preparation of a functional document distinguishes technical drawing from the expressive drawing of the visual arts. Artistic drawings are subjectively interpreted, their meanings are multiply determined, Technical drawings are understood to have one intended meaning. A drafter, draftsperson, or draughtsman is a person who makes a drawing, a professional drafter who makes technical drawings is sometimes called a drafting technician. Professional drafting is a desirable and necessary function in the design and manufacture of mechanical components. Professional draftspersons bridge the gap between engineers and manufacturers and contribute experience and technical expertise to the design process, the basic drafting procedure is to place a piece of paper on a smooth surface with right-angle corners and straight sides—typically a drawing board. A sliding straightedge known as a T-square is then placed on one of the sides, allowing it to be slid across the side of the table, parallel lines can be drawn simply by moving the T-square and running a pencil or technical pen along the T-squares edge. The T-square is used to other devices such as set squares or triangles. Modern drafting tables come equipped with a machine that is supported on both sides of the table to slide over a large piece of paper. Because it is secured on both sides, lines drawn along the edge are guaranteed to be parallel, in addition, the drafter uses several technical drawing tools to draw curves and circles. Primary among these are the compasses, used for drawing simple arcs and circles, a spline is a rubber coated articulated metal that can be manually bent to most curves. Drafting templates assist the drafter with creating recurring objects in a drawing without having to reproduce the object from scratch every time. Templates are sold commercially by a number of vendors, usually customized to a specific task and this basic drafting system requires an accurate table and constant attention to the positioning of the tools. A common error is to allow the triangles to push the top of the T-square down slightly, thereby throwing off all angles. Even tasks as simple as drawing two angled lines meeting at a point require a number of moves of the T-square and triangles and these machines often included the ability to change the angle, thereby removing the need for the triangles as well
12.
Microcomputer
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A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. It includes a microprocessor, memory, and minimal input/output circuitry mounted on a printed circuit board. Microcomputers became popular in the 1970s and 1980s with the advent of increasingly powerful microprocessors, the predecessors to these computers, mainframes and minicomputers, were comparatively much larger and more expensive. Many microcomputers are also personal computers, the abbreviation micro was common during the 1970s and 1980s, but has now fallen out of common usage. The term microcomputer came into use after the introduction of the minicomputer. Most notably, the replaced the many separate components that made up the minicomputers CPU with one integrated microprocessor chip. The first microcomputer was the Japanese Sord Computer Corporations SMP80/08, which was followed by the SMP80/x, the French developers of the Micral N filed their patents with the term Micro-ordinateur, a literal equivalent of Microcomputer, to designate a solid state machine designed with a microprocessor. Use of audio cassettes for data storage replaced manual re-entry of a program every time the device was powered on. Large cheap arrays of silicon logic gates in the form of memory and EPROMs allowed utility programs. This replaced the slow, complex, and expensive teletypewriter that was common as an interface to minicomputers. All these improvements in cost and usability resulted in an explosion in their popularity during the late 1970s, a large number of computer makers packaged microcomputers for use in small business applications. This allowed businesses unable to afford leasing of a minicomputer or time-sharing service the opportunity to automate business functions, without hiring a full-time staff to operate the computers. A representative system of this era would have used an S100 bus, an 8-bit processor such as an Intel 8080 or Zilog Z80, the increasing availability and power of desktop computers for personal use attracted the attention of more software developers. In time, and as the industry matured, the market for personal computers standardized around IBM PC compatibles running DOS, everyday use of the expression microcomputer has declined significantly from the mid-1980s and has declined in commonplace usage since 2000. The term is most commonly associated with the first wave of all-in-one 8-bit home computers, although, or perhaps because, an increasingly diverse range of modern microprocessor-based devices fit the definition of microcomputer, they are no longer referred to as such in everyday speech. IBM first promoted the personal computer to differentiate themselves from other microcomputers, often called home computers. However, following its release, the IBM PC itself was widely imitated, the component parts were commonly available to producers and the BIOS was reverse engineered through cleanroom design techniques. IBM PC compatible clones became commonplace, and the personal computer
13.
Video card
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A video card is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display. Frequently, these are advertised as discrete or dedicated graphics cards, Standards such as MDA, CGA, HGC, Tandy, PGC, EGA, VGA, MCGA,8514 or XGA were introduced from 1982 to 1990 and supported by a variety of hardware manufacturers. The majority of video cards are built with either AMD-sourced or Nvidia-sourced graphics chips. Until 2000, 3dfx Interactive was also an important, and often groundbreaking, most video cards offer various functions such as accelerated rendering of 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or the ability to connect multiple monitors. Video cards also have sound capabilities to output sound – along with the video for connected TVs or monitors with integrated speakers. Graphics cards werent very useful for computers, since they didnt have the capability to run graphic-based games or high-resolution videos as modern computers do now. Within the industry, video cards are sometimes called graphics add-in-boards, abbreviated as AIBs, as an alternative to the use of a video card, video hardware can be integrated into the motherboard or the CPU. Both approaches can be called integrated graphics, motherboard-based implementations are sometimes called on-board video while CPU-based implementations are known as accelerated processing units. The ability to disable the integrated graphics sometimes also allows the use of a motherboard on which the on-board video has failed. Sometimes both the graphics and a dedicated graphics card can be used simultaneously to feed separate displays. The main advantages of integrated graphics include cost, compactness, simplicity, the performance disadvantage of integrated graphics arises because the graphics processor shares system resources with the CPU. A dedicated graphics card has its own random access memory, its own cooling system, upgrading to a dedicated graphics card offloads work from the CPU and system RAM, so not only will graphics processing be faster, but the computers overall performance may also improve. Both of the dominant CPU makers, AMD and Intel, are moving to APUs, as of late 2013, the best APUs provide graphics processing approaching mid-range mobile video cards and are adequate for casual gaming. Users seeking the highest video performance for gaming or other graphics-intensive uses should still choose computers with dedicated graphics cards. Beyond the enthusiast segment is the market for video cards for workstations used in the special effects industry. Nvidia is a player in the professional segment. As the processing power of cards has increased, so has their demand for electrical power. Current high-performance video cards tend to consume a great deal of power, for example, the thermal design power for the GeForce GTX TITAN is 250 Watts
14.
Mainframe computer
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The term originally referred to the large cabinets called main frames that housed the central processing unit and main memory of early computers. Later, the term was used to distinguish high-end commercial machines from less powerful units, most large-scale computer system architectures were established in the 1960s, but continue to evolve. Their high stability and reliability enable these machines to run uninterrupted for decades, Mainframes are defined by high availability, one of the main reasons for their longevity, since they are typically used in applications where downtime would be costly or catastrophic. The term reliability, availability and serviceability is a characteristic of mainframe computers. Proper planning and implementation is required to exploit these features, and if improperly implemented, in the late 1950s, most mainframes had no explicitly interactive interface, but only accepted sets of punched cards, paper tape, or magnetic tape to transfer data and programs. In cases where interactive terminals were supported, these were used almost exclusively for applications rather than program development, typewriter and Teletype devices were also common control consoles for system operators through the 1970s, although ultimately supplanted by keyboard/display devices. By the early 1970s, many mainframes acquired interactive user interfaces and operated as timesharing computers, users gained access through specialized terminals or, later, from personal computers equipped with terminal emulation software. By the 1980s, many mainframes supported graphical terminals, and terminal emulation and this format of end-user computing reached mainstream obsolescence in the 1990s due to the advent of personal computers provided with GUIs. After 2000, most modern mainframes have partially or entirely phased out classic green screen terminal access for end-users in favour of Web-style user interfaces, the infrastructure requirements were drastically reduced during the mid-1990s, when CMOS mainframe designs replaced the older bipolar technology. IBM claimed that its newer mainframes could reduce data center energy costs for power and cooling, modern mainframes can run multiple different instances of operating systems at the same time. This technique of virtual machines allows applications to run as if they were on physically distinct computers, in this role, a single mainframe can replace higher-functioning hardware services available to conventional servers. While mainframes pioneered this capability, virtualization is now available on most families of computer systems, Mainframes can add or hot swap system capacity without disrupting system function, with specificity and granularity to a level of sophistication not usually available with most server solutions. Modern mainframes, notably the IBM zSeries, System z9 and System z10 servers, such a two-mainframe installation can support continuous business service, avoiding both planned and unplanned outages. In practice many customers use multiple mainframes linked either by Parallel Sysplex and shared DASD, or with shared, Mainframes are designed to handle very high volume input and output and emphasize throughput computing. Since the late-1950s, mainframe designs have included subsidiary hardware which manage the I/O devices and it is common in mainframe shops to deal with massive databases and files. Gigabyte to terabyte-size record files are not unusual, compared to a typical PC, mainframes commonly have hundreds to thousands of times as much data storage online, and can access it reasonably quickly. Other server families also offload I/O processing and emphasize throughput computing, Mainframes also have execution integrity characteristics for fault tolerant computing. This hardware-level feature, also found in HPs NonStop systems, is known as lock-stepping, not all applications absolutely need the assured integrity that these systems provide, but many do, such as financial transaction processing
15.
Minicomputer
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A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold for much less than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. The class formed a group with its own software architectures. Minis were designed for control, instrumentation, human interaction, and communication switching as distinct from calculation, many were sold indirectly to Original Equipment Manufacturers for final end use application. During the two decade lifetime of the class, almost 100 companies formed and only a half dozen remained. They usually took up one or a few 19-inch rack cabinets, the definition of minicomputer is vague with the consequence that there are a number of candidates for the first minicomputer. An early and highly successful minicomputer was Digital Equipment Corporations 12-bit PDP-8, later versions of the PDP-8 took advantage of small-scale integrated circuits. The important precursors of the PDP-8 include the PDP-5, LINC, the TX-0, the TX-2, DEC gave rise to a number of minicomputer companies along Massachusetts Route 128, including Data General, Wang Laboratories, Apollo Computer, and Prime Computer. Minicomputers were also known as midrange computers and they grew to have relatively high processing power and capacity. They were used in manufacturing process control, telephone switching and to control laboratory equipment, in the 1970s, they were the hardware that was used to launch the computer-aided design industry and other similar industries where a smaller dedicated system was needed. The 7400 series of TTL integrated circuits started appearing in minicomputers in the late 1960s, the 74181 arithmetic logic unit was commonly used in the CPU data paths. Each 74181 had a bus width of four bits, hence the popularity of bit-slice architecture, some scientific computers, such as the Nicolet 1080, would use the 7400 series in groups of five ICs for their uncommon twenty bits architecture. Starting in the 1980s, many minicomputers used VLSI circuits, the result was that minicomputers and computer terminals were replaced by networked workstations, file servers and PCs in some installations, beginning in the latter half of the 1980s. Also, the Microsoft Windows series of operating systems, beginning with Windows NT, now included server versions that supported preemptive multitasking, Digital Equipment Corporation was once the leading minicomputer manufacturer, at one time the second-largest computer company after IBM. DEC was sold to Compaq in 1998, while Data General was acquired by EMC Corporation, today only a few proprietary minicomputer architectures survive. The IBM System/38 operating system, which introduced many advanced concepts, realising the importance of the myriad lines of legacy code written, AS stands for Application System. Great efforts were made by IBM to enable programs written for the System/34. The AS/400 was replaced by the iSeries, which was replaced by the System i. In 2008, the System i was replaced by the IBM Power Systems, by contrast, competing proprietary computing architectures from the early 1980s, such as DECs VAX, Wang VS and Hewlett Packards HP3000 have long been discontinued without a compatible upgrade path
16.
Graphics terminal
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A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system. The function of a terminal is confined to display and input of data, a terminal that depends on the host computer for its processing power is called a dumb terminal or thin client. A personal computer can run terminal emulator software that replicates the function of a terminal, sometimes allowing concurrent use of local programs and access to a distant terminal host system. The terminal of the first working programmable, fully automatic digital Turing-complete computer, the Z3, had a keyboard, early user terminals connected to computers were electromechanical teleprinters/teletypewriters, such as the Teletype Model 33 ASR, originally used for telegraphy or the Friden Flexowriter. Later printing terminals such as the DECwriter LA30 were developed, however printing terminals were limited by the speed at which paper could be printed, and for interactive use the paper record was unnecessary. The problem was that the amount of memory needed to store the information on a page of text was comparable to the memory in low end minicomputers then in use. Displaying the information at video speeds was also a challenge and the control logic took up a rack worth of pre-integrated circuit electronics. Another approach involved the use of the tube, a specialized CRT developed by Tektronix that retained information written on it without the need to refresh. The Datapoint 3300 from Computer Terminal Corporation was announced in 1967 and shipped in 1969 and it solved the memory space issue mentioned above by using a digital shift-register design, and using only 72 columns rather than the later more common choice of 80. Some type of blinking cursor that can be positioned, the term intelligent in this context dates from 1969. Notable examples include the IBM2250 and IBM2260, predecessors to the IBM3270, providing even more processing possibilities, workstations like the Televideo TS-800 could run CP/M-86, blurring the distinction between terminal and Personal Computer. Most terminals were connected to minicomputers or mainframe computers and often had a green or amber screen, typically terminals communicate with the computer via a serial port via a null modem cable, often using an EIA RS-232 or RS-422 or RS-423 or a current loop serial interface. In fact, the design for the Intel 8008 was originally conceived at Computer Terminal Corporation as the processor for the Datapoint 2200. While early IBM PCs had single color green screens, these screens were not terminals. The screen of a PC did not contain any character generation hardware, all signals and video formatting were generated by the video display card in the PC, or by the CPU. An IBM PC monitor, whether it was the monochrome display or the 16-color display, was technically much more similar to an analog TV set than to a terminal. With suitable software a PC could, however, emulate a terminal, the Data General One could be booted into terminal emulator mode from its ROM. Since the advent and subsequent popularization of the computer, few genuine hardware terminals are used to interface with computers today
17.
Mobile app
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A mobile application software or mobile app is an application software designed to run on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. Some pre-installed apps can be removed by an ordinary uninstall process, where the software does not allow this, some devices can be rooted to eliminate the undesired apps. Native mobile apps often stand in contrast to desktop applications that run on desktop computers, Apps that are not preinstalled are usually available through distribution platforms called app stores. They began appearing in 2008 and are operated by the owner of the mobile operating system, such as the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store. Some apps are free, while others must be bought, usually, they are downloaded from the platform to a target device, but sometimes they can be downloaded to laptops or desktop computers. For apps with a price, generally a percentage, 20-30%, goes to the provider. The same app can therefore cost a different price depending on the mobile platform, the term app is a shortening of the term application software. It has become popular, and in 2010 was listed as Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society. In 2009, technology columnist David Pogue said that newer smartphones could be nicknamed app phones to distinguish them from earlier less-sophisticated smartphones, Mobile apps were originally offered for general productivity and information retrieval, including email, calendar, contacts, stock market and weather information. However, public demand and the availability of developer tools drove rapid expansion into other categories, in 2014 government regulatory agencies began trying to regulate and curate apps, particularly medical apps. Some companies offer apps as a method to deliver content with certain advantages over an official website. Usage of mobile apps has become increasingly prevalent across mobile phone users, a May 2012 comScore study reported that during the previous quarter, more mobile subscribers used apps than browsed the web on their devices,51. 1% vs.49. 8% respectively. Researchers found that usage of mobile apps strongly correlates with user context and depends on users location, Mobile apps are playing an ever-increasing role within healthcare and when designed and integrated correctly can yield many benefits. Market research firm Gartner predicted that 102 billion apps would be downloaded in 2013, by Q22015, the Google Play and Apple stores alone generated $5 billion. Developing apps for mobile devices requires considering the constraints and features of these devices, Mobile devices run on battery and have less powerful processors than personal computers and also have more features such as location detection and cameras. Developers also have to consider an array of screen sizes, hardware specifications and configurations because of intense competition in mobile software. Mobile application development requires use of specialized integrated development environments, Mobile apps are first tested within the development environment using emulators and later subjected to field testing. Emulators provide a way to test applications on mobile phones to which developers may not have physical access
18.
Web application
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In computing, a web application or web app is a client–server software application in which the client runs in a web browser. Common web applications include webmail, online sales, online auctions, wikis, instant messaging services. The general distinction between a dynamic web page of any kind and a web application is unclear, Web sites most likely to be referred to as web applications are those which have similar functionality to a desktop software application, or to a mobile app. HTML5 introduced explicit language support for making applications that are loaded as web pages, single-page applications are more application-like because they reject the more typical web paradigm of moving between distinct pages with different URLs. Single-page frameworks like Sencha Touch and AngularJS might be used to speed development of such a web app for a mobile platform, recently, frameworks like React Native, Flutter and Xamarin allow the development of native apps for all platforms using languages other than each standard native language. Hybrid apps embed a mobile web site inside a native app, possibly using a hybrid framework like Apache Cordova and this allows development using web technologies while also retaining certain advantages of native apps. In earlier computing models like client–server, the load for the application was shared between code on the server and code installed on each client locally. In other words, an application had its own pre-compiled client program which served as its interface and had to be separately installed on each users personal computer. In contrast, web applications use web documents written in a format such as HTML and JavaScript. Client web software updates may happen each time the web page is visited, during the session, the web browser interprets and displays the pages, and acts as the universal client for any web application. However, every significant change to the web page required a trip back to the server to refresh the entire page. In 1995 Netscape introduced a client-side scripting language called JavaScript allowing programmers to add some elements to the user interface that ran on the client side. In 1996, Macromedia introduced Flash, a vector animation player that could be added to browsers as a plug-in to embed animations on the web pages and it allowed the use of a scripting language to program interactions on the client side with no need to communicate with the server. In 1999, the web application concept was introduced in the Java language in the Servlet Specification version 2.2, in 2005, the term Ajax was coined, and applications like Gmail started to make their client sides more and more interactive. A web page script is able to contact the server for storing/retrieving data without downloading a web page. In 2011, HTML5 was finalized, which provides graphic and multimedia capabilities without the need of client side plug-ins, HTML5 also enriched the semantic content of documents. The APIs and document object model are no longer afterthoughts, but are fundamental parts of the HTML5 specification, webGL API paved the way for advanced 3D graphics based on HTML5 canvas and JavaScript language. These have significant importance in creating truly platform and browser independent rich web applications, many services have worked to combine all of these into a more familiar interface that adopts the appearance of an operating system
19.
Interoperability
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XML or SQL standards are among the tools of syntactic interoperability. This is also true for lower-level data formats, such as ensuring alphabetical characters are stored in a variation of ASCII or a Unicode format in all the communicating systems. To achieve semantic interoperability, both sides must refer to an information exchange reference model. The content of the information requests are unambiguously defined, what is sent is the same as what is understood. The possibility of promoting this result by user-driven convergence of disparate interpretations of the information has been object of study by research prototypes such as S3DB. Multiple social, organizational, political, legal entities working together for a common interest and/or information exchange, Interoperability imply Open standards ab-initio, i. e. by definition. Interoperability imply exchanges between a range of products, or similar products from different vendors, or even between past and future revisions of the same product. Interoperability may be developed post-facto, as a special measure between two products, while excluding the rest, by using Open standards. When a vendor is forced to adapt its system to a dominant system that is not based on Open standards, it is not interoperability, after the doubts and reservations of all members are addressed, the resulting common document is endorsed as a common standard. This document is released to the public, and henceforth becomes an open standard. It is usually published and is available freely or at a nominal cost to any and all comers and this is not a problem if the products implementation is open and minimally encumbered, but it may as well be both closed and heavily encumbered. The newer implementations often rely on clean-room reverse engineering in the absence of data to achieve interoperability. The original vendors can provide technical data to others, often in the name of encouraging competition, but such data is invariably encumbered. These changes can either not be passed on to other vendors at all, or passed on after a strategic delay and this revenue stream is only a result of the original products market dominance and not a result of any innate superiority. ITU-T provides standards for international telecommunications, the degree of interoperability should be defined when referring to specific cases. In two-way radio, interoperability is composed of three dimensions, compatible communications paths, radio system coverage or adequate signal strength, and, Search interoperability refers to the ability of two or more information collections to be searched by a single query. Federated Search technology, which does not place format requirements on the owner, has emerged as one solution to search interoperability challenges. In addition, standards, such as OAI-PMH, RDF, such standards also address broader topics of interoperability, such as allowing data mining
20.
Macintosh
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The Macintosh (/ˈmækᵻntɒʃ/ MAK-in-tosh, is a series of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. Steve Jobs introduced the original Macintosh computer on January 24,1984 and this was the companys first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user interface and mouse. This first model was renamed to Macintosh 128k for uniqueness amongst a populous family of subsequently updated models which are also based on Apples same proprietary architecture. Since 1998, Apple has largely phased out the Macintosh name in favor of Mac, Macintosh systems still found success in education and desktop publishing and kept Apple as the second-largest PC manufacturer for the next decade. In the 1990s, improvements in the rival Wintel platform, notably with the introduction of Windows 3.0, then Windows 95, gradually took market share from the more expensive Macintosh systems. The performance advantage of 68000-based Macintosh systems was eroded by Intels Pentium, even after a transition to the superior PowerPC-based Power Macintosh line in 1994, the falling prices of commodity PC components and the release of Windows 95 saw the Macintosh user base decline. In 1998, after the return of Steve Jobs, Apple consolidated its multiple consumer-level desktop models into the all-in-one iMac G3, since their transition to Intel processors in 2006, the complete lineup is entirely based on said processors and associated systems. Its current lineup comprises three desktops, and three laptops and its Xserve server was discontinued in 2011 in favor of the Mac Mini and Mac Pro. Apple also develops the operating system for the Mac, currently macOS version 10.12 Sierra, Macs are currently capable of running non-Apple operating systems such as Linux, OpenBSD, and Microsoft Windows with the aid of Boot Camp or third-party software. Apple does not license macOS for use on computers, though it did license previous versions of the classic Mac OS through their Macintosh clone program from 1995 to 1997. The Macintosh project was begun in 1979 by Jef Raskin, an Apple employee who envisioned an easy-to-use, in 1978 Apple began to organize the Apple Lisa project, aiming to build a next-generation machine similar to an advanced Apple III or the yet-to-be-introduced IBM PC. In 1979, Steve Jobs learned of the work on graphical user interfaces taking place at Xerox PARC. He arranged a deal in which Xerox received Apple stock options in return for which Apple would license their designs, the basic layout of the Lisa was largely complete by 1982, at which point Jobs continual suggestions for improvements led to him being kicked off the project. At the same time that the Lisa was becoming a GUI machine in 1979, the design at that time was for a low-cost, easy-to-use machine for the average consumer. Raskin was authorized to start hiring for the project in September 1979 and his initial team would eventually consist of himself, Howard, Joanna Hoffman, Burrell Smith, and Bud Tribble. Smiths design used fewer RAM chips than the Lisa, which production of the board significantly more cost-efficient. Though there were no memory slots, its RAM was expandable to 512 kB by means of soldering sixteen IC sockets to accept 256 kb RAM chips in place of the factory-installed chips. The final products screen was a 9-inch, 512x342 pixel monochrome display, burrels innovative design, combining the low production cost of an Apple II with the computing power of Lisas Motorola 68000 CPU, began to receive Jobs attentions
21.
Unix
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Among these is Apples macOS, which is the Unix version with the largest installed base as of 2014. Many Unix-like operating systems have arisen over the years, of which Linux is the most popular, Unix was originally meant to be a convenient platform for programmers developing software to be run on it and on other systems, rather than for non-programmer users. The system grew larger as the system started spreading in academic circles, as users added their own tools to the system. Unix was designed to be portable, multi-tasking and multi-user in a time-sharing configuration and these concepts are collectively known as the Unix philosophy. By the early 1980s users began seeing Unix as a universal operating system. Under Unix, the system consists of many utilities along with the master control program. To mediate such access, the kernel has special rights, reflected in the division between user space and kernel space, the microkernel concept was introduced in an effort to reverse the trend towards larger kernels and return to a system in which most tasks were completed by smaller utilities. In an era when a standard computer consisted of a disk for storage and a data terminal for input and output. However, modern systems include networking and other new devices, as graphical user interfaces developed, the file model proved inadequate to the task of handling asynchronous events such as those generated by a mouse. In the 1980s, non-blocking I/O and the set of inter-process communication mechanisms were augmented with Unix domain sockets, shared memory, message queues, and semaphores. In microkernel implementations, functions such as network protocols could be moved out of the kernel, Multics introduced many innovations, but had many problems. Frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not by the aims and their last researchers to leave Multics, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, M. D. McIlroy, and J. F. Ossanna, decided to redo the work on a much smaller scale. The name Unics, a pun on Multics, was suggested for the project in 1970. Peter H. Salus credits Peter Neumann with the pun, while Brian Kernighan claims the coining for himself, in 1972, Unix was rewritten in the C programming language. Bell Labs produced several versions of Unix that are referred to as Research Unix. In 1975, the first source license for UNIX was sold to faculty at the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science, UIUC graduate student Greg Chesson was instrumental in negotiating the terms of this license. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, the influence of Unix in academic circles led to adoption of Unix by commercial startups, including Sequent, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX. In the late 1980s, AT&T Unix System Laboratories and Sun Microsystems developed System V Release 4, in the 1990s, Unix-like systems grew in popularity as Linux and BSD distributions were developed through collaboration by a worldwide network of programmers
22.
MS-DOS
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MS-DOS is a discontinued operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. MS-DOS resulted from a request in 1981 by IBM for a system to use in its IBM PC range of personal computers. Microsoft quickly bought the rights to 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, IBM licensed and released it in August 1981 as PC DOS1.0 for use in their PCs. During its life, several competing products were released for the x86 platform and it was also the underlying basic operating system on which early versions of Windows ran as a GUI. It is a operating system, and consumes negligible installation space. MS-DOS was a form of 86-DOS – owned by Seattle Computer Products. This first version was shipped in August 1980, Microsoft, which needed an operating system for the IBM Personal Computer hired Tim Paterson in May 1981 and bought 86-DOS1.10 for $75,000 in July of the same year. Microsoft kept the number, but renamed it MS-DOS. They also licensed MS-DOS1. 10/1.14 to IBM, within a year Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to over 70 other companies. It was designed to be an OS that could run on any 8086-family computer, thus, there were many different versions of MS-DOS for different hardware, and there is a major distinction between an IBM-compatible machine and an MS-DOS machine. This design would have worked well for compatibility, if application programs had only used MS-DOS services to perform device I/O, Microsoft omitted multi-user support from MS-DOS because Microsofts Unix-based operating system, Xenix, was fully multi-user. After the breakup of the Bell System, however, AT&T Computer Systems started selling UNIX System V, believing that it could not compete with AT&T in the Unix market, Microsoft abandoned Xenix, and in 1987 transferred ownership of Xenix to the Santa Cruz Operation. On 25 March 2014, Microsoft made the code to SCP MS-DOS1.25, as an April Fools joke in 2015, Microsoft Mobile launched a Windows Phone application called MS-DOS Mobile which was presented as a new mobile operating system and worked similar to MS-DOS. Version 3.1 – Support for Microsoft Networks Version 3.2 – First version to support 3.5 inch,720 kB floppy drives and diskettes. Version 3.21 Version 3.22 – Version 3.25 Version 3.3 – First version to support 3.5 inch,1.44 MB floppy drives and diskettes, Version 3. 3a Version 3.31 – supports FAT16B and larger drives. MS-DOS4.0 and MS-DOS4.1 – A separate branch of development with additional multitasking features and it is unrelated to any later versions, including versions 4.00 and 4.01 listed below MS-DOS4. x – includes a graphical/mouse interface. It had many bugs and compatibility issues. Version 4.00 – First version to support a hard disk partition that is greater than 32 MiB. Version 4.01 – Microsoft rewritten Version 4.00 released under MS-DOS label, First version to introduce volume serial number when formatting hard disks and floppy disks
23.
Windows 3.1x
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Windows 3. 1x is a series of 16-bit operating environments produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. The series began with Windows 3.1, which was first sold during April 1992 as a successor to Windows 3.0, subsequent versions were released between 1992 and 1994 until the series was superseded by Windows 95. Windows 3.1, released on April 6,1992, introduced a TrueType font system, similar functionality was available for Windows 3.0 through Adobe Type Manager font system from Adobe. Windows 3.1 was designed to have compatibility with older Windows platforms. As with Windows 3.0, version 3.1 had File Manager and Program Manager and it included Minesweeper as a replacement for Reversi. Windows 3.1 Multimedia PC Version included a viewer. It was targeted to the new Multimedia PC standard and included sound, Windows 3.1 dropped real mode support and required a minimum of a 286 PC with 1 MB of RAM to run. The effect of this was to increase system stability over the crash-prone Windows 3.0, some older features were removed, like CGA graphics support and compatibility with real mode Windows 2. x applications. Truetype font support was added, providing scalable fonts to Windows applications, Windows 3.1 included the following fonts, Arial, Courier New, Times New Roman, and Symbol in regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic versions. Truetype fonts could be scaled to any size and rotated, depending on the calling application, a few DOS applications, such as late releases of Microsoft Word, could access Windows Clipboard. Windows own drivers couldnt work directly with DOS applications, hardware such as mice required a DOS driver to be loaded before starting Windows, icons could be dragged and dropped for the first time, in addition to having a more detailed appearance. A file could be dragged onto Print Manager icon and the file would be printed by the current printer, assuming it was associated with a capable of printing. Alternatively, the file could be dragged out of File Manager, while Windows 3.0 was limited to 16 MB maximum memory, Windows 3.1 can access a theoretical 4 GB in 386 Enhanced Mode. However, no process can use more than 16 MB. File Manager was significantly improved over Windows 3.0, Multimedia support was enhanced over what was available in Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions and available to all Windows 3.1 users. Windows 3.1 was available via 720 KB,1.2 MB, and 1.44 MB floppy distributions. It was also the first version of Windows to be distributed on CD-ROM — although this was common for Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Installed size on the disk was between 10 MB and 15 MB
24.
Ribbon (computing)
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In computer interface design, a ribbon is a graphical control element in the form of a set of toolbars placed on several tabs. Such ribbons use tabs to expose different sets of controls, eliminating the need for numerous parallel toolbars, contextual tabs are tabs that appear only when the user needs them. For instance, in a processor, an image-related tab may appear when the user selects an image in a document. The usage of the term dates from the 1980s and was originally used as a synonym for what is now more commonly known as a toolbar. However, in 2007, Microsoft Office 2007 used the term to refer to its own implementation of tabbed toolbars bearing heterogeneous controls, thus, Microsoft popularized the term with a new meaning, although similar tabbed layouts of controls had existed in previous software from other vendors. The new design was intended to alleviate the problem of not finding or knowing of the existence of available features in the Office suite. Toolbar controls have heterogeneous sizes and are classified in visually distinguishable groups, Microsoft applications implementing ribbons each have a different set of tabs which house user controls for that application. Within each tab, various related controls may be grouped together, double-clicking the active tab or clicking the Minimize button hides the command panel, leaving only the tabs visible. Repeating this action reveals the pane, the ribbon consolidates the functionality previously found in menus, toolbars and occasionally task panes into one area. In Microsoft Office 2007, only Word, Excel, Access, with the release of Microsoft Office 2010, however, ribbons were implemented in the rest of the Microsoft Office applications. Microsoft Office 2010 added additional end-user customization support to its user interface, Microsoft gradually implemented ribbons in other software. The fourth wave of Windows Live Essentials applications, including Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and Writer, on Windows 7, Paint and WordPad feature ribbons. On Windows 8, File Explorer followed suit, ribbons also appeared in SQL Server Report Builder, Dynamics CRM2011, Microsoft WebMatrix, Microsoft Mathematics v4.0, Microsoft EMET4.0 and Microsoft Message Analyzer. Internet Explorer, Notepad and Visual Studio, however, do not have a ribbon, the Nielsen Norman Group published some examples in a 2008 GUI showcase report. In June 2008, Red Flag Software released RedOffice 4.0 beta, in November 2008 Sun Microsystems started the project Renaissance to improve the user interface of OpenOffice. org. So far the prototypes of the project are frequently seen as similar to ribbons, prior to Microsofts introduction of ribbons in Office 2007, the user interface for its Office suites had barely changed since the introduction of Office 97 on 19 November 1996. Because of this, users became accustomed to this style of interface, when Microsoft implemented ribbons, it was met with mixed reactions. Jeff Atwood thought the new system made menus obsolete as a cornerstone of the WIMP interface when it was first revealed in 2005, redmondmag. com reported that power users feel the ribbons take too much time and patience to learn
25.
Portable Document Format
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The Portable Document Format is a file format used to present documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, graphics, PDF was developed in the early 1990s as a way to share computer documents, including text formatting and inline images. It was among a number of competing formats such as DjVu, Envoy, Common Ground Digital Paper, Farallon Replica, in those early years before the rise of the World Wide Web and HTML documents, PDF was popular mainly in desktop publishing workflows. Adobe Systems made the PDF specification available free of charge in 1993 and these proprietary technologies are not standardized and their specification is published only on Adobe’s website. Many of them are not supported by popular third-party implementations of PDF. So when organizations publish PDFs which use proprietary technologies, they present accessibility issues for some users. In 2014, ISO TC171 voted to deprecate XFA for ISO 32000-2, on January 9,2017, the final draft for ISO 32000-2 was published, thus reaching the approval stage. The PDF combines three technologies, A subset of the PostScript page description programming language, for generating the layout, a font-embedding/replacement system to allow fonts to travel with the documents. A structured storage system to bundle these elements and any associated content into a single file, PostScript is a page description language run in an interpreter to generate an image, a process requiring many resources. It can handle graphics and standard features of programming such as if. PDF is largely based on PostScript but simplified to remove flow control features like these, often, the PostScript-like PDF code is generated from a source PostScript file. The graphics commands that are output by the PostScript code are collected and tokenized, any files, graphics, or fonts to which the document refers also are collected. Then, everything is compressed to a single file, therefore, the entire PostScript world remains intact. PDF supports graphic transparency, PostScript does not, PostScript is an interpreted programming language with an implicit global state, so instructions accompanying the description of one page can affect the appearance of any following page. Therefore, all preceding pages in a PostScript document must be processed to determine the appearance of a given page. A PDF file is a 7-bit ASCII file, except for elements that may have binary content. A PDF file starts with a header containing the magic number, the format is a subset of a COS format. A COS tree file consists primarily of objects, of which there are eight types, Boolean values, representing true or false Numbers Strings, enclosed within parentheses, objects may be either direct or indirect
26.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
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French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
28.
Italian language
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By most measures, Italian, together with Sardinian, is the closest to Latin of the Romance languages. Italian is a language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City. Italian is spoken by minorities in places such as France, Montenegro, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Crimea and Tunisia and by large expatriate communities in the Americas. Many speakers are native bilinguals of both standardized Italian and other regional languages, Italian is the fourth most studied language in the world. Italian is a major European language, being one of the languages of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is the third most widely spoken first language in the European Union with 65 million native speakers, including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries and on other continents, the total number of speakers is around 85 million. Italian is the working language of the Holy See, serving as the lingua franca in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Italian is known as the language of music because of its use in musical terminology and its influence is also widespread in the arts and in the luxury goods market. Italian has been reported as the fourth or fifth most frequently taught foreign language in the world, Italian was adopted by the state after the Unification of Italy, having previously been a literary language based on Tuscan as spoken mostly by the upper class of Florentine society. Its development was influenced by other Italian languages and to some minor extent. Its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian, unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latins contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive, however, Italian as a language used in Italy and some surrounding regions has a longer history. What would come to be thought of as Italian was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri, written in his native Florentine. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language, and thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the language of Italy. Italian was also one of the recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italy has always had a dialect for each city, because the cities. Those dialects now have considerable variety, as Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian. Even in the case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages
29.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
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Korean language
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It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of the Peoples Republic of China. Approximately 80 million people worldwide speak Korean and this implies that Korean is not an isolate, but a member of a small family. There is still debate on whether Korean and Japanese are related with each other, the Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax. A relation of Korean with Japonic languages has been proposed by linguists like William George Aston, Chinese characters arrived in Korea together with Buddhism during the pre-Three Kingdoms period. Mainly privileged elites were educated to read and write in hanja, however, today, the hanja are largely unused in everyday life, but in South Korea they experience revivals on artistic works and are important in historic and/or linguistic studies of Korean. Since the Korean War, through 70 years of separation, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation, verb inflection, the Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North Korea and South Korea. In South Korea, the Korean language is referred to by names including hanguk-eo Korean language, hanguk-mal, Korean speech and uri-mal. In hanguk-eo and hanguk-mal, the first part of the word, hanguk, refers to the Korean nation while -eo and -mal mean language and speech, Korean is also simply referred to as guk-eo, literally national language. This name is based on the same Chinese characters meaning nation + language that are used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages. In North Korea and China, the language is most often called Chosŏn-mal, or more formally, the English word Korean is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to Western countries. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and Goryeo In, the majority of historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolians exhibition of gender agreement can be used to argue that a relationship with Altaic is unlikely. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list, a good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asa, meaning hemp. Also, the doublet wo meaning hemp is attested in Western Old Japanese and it is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. Among ancient languages, various relatives of Korean have been proposed. Some classify the language of Jeju Island as a distinct modern Koreanic language, Other famous theories are the Dravido-Korean languages theory and the mostly unknown southern-theory which suggest an Austronesian relation. Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in countries including the Peoples Republic of China, the United States, Japan. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea
31.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
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Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
33.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
34.
Czech language
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Czech, historically also Bohemian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group. It is spoken by over 10 million people and is the language of the Czech Republic. Czech is closely related to Slovak, to the point of being intelligible to a very high degree. In the later 18th to mid-19th century, the written standard was codified in the context of the Czech National Revival. The main vernacular, known as Common Czech, is based on the vernacular of Prague, the Moravian dialects spoken in the eastern part of the country are mostly also counted as Czech, although some of their eastern variants are closer to Slovak. The Czech phoneme inventory is moderate in size, comprising five vowels, words may contain uncommon consonant clusters, including one consonant represented by the grapheme ř, or lack vowels altogether. Czech orthography is simple, and has used as a model by phonologists. Czech is classified as a member of the West Slavic sub-branch of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family and this branch includes Polish, Kashubian, Upper and Lower Sorbian and Slovak. Slovak is by far the closest genetic neighbor of Czech, the West Slavic languages are spoken in an area classified as part of Central Europe. Around the 7th century, the Slavic expansion reached Central Europe, the West Slavic polity of Great Moravia formed by the 9th century. The Christianization of Bohemia took place during the 9th and 10th centuries, the Bohemian language is first recorded in writing in glosses and short notes during the 12th to 13th centuries. Literary works written in Czech appear in the early 14th century, the first complete Bible translation also dates to this period. Old Czech texts, including poetry and cookbooks, were produced outside the university as well, literary activity becomes widespread in the early 15th century in the context of the Bohemian Reformation. There was no standardization distinguishing between Czech and Slovak prior to the 15th century, the publication of the Kralice Bible between 1579 and 1593 became very important for standardization of the Czech language in the following centuries. In 1615, the Bohemian diet tried to declare Czech to be the official language of the kingdom. After the Bohemian Revolt which was defeated by the Habsburgs in 1620 and this emigration together with other consequences of the Thirty Years War had a negative impact on the further use of the Czech language. In 1627, Czech and German became official languages of the Kingdom of Bohemia and in the 18th century German became dominant in Bohemia and Moravia, the modern standard Czech language originates in standardization efforts of the 18th century. Changes include the shift of í to ej and é to í and the merging of í
35.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
36.
Hungarian language
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Hungarian is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary it is spoken by communities of Hungarian people in neighbouring countries. Like Finnish and Estonian, it belongs to the Uralic language family, its closest relatives being Mansi and it is one of several European languages not part of the Indo-European languages, and the most widely-spoken European language that does not belong to the Indo-European family. The Hungarian name for the language is magyar or magyar nyelv, the word Magyar is used as an English and Hungarian word to refer to Hungarian people as an ethnic group. Hungarian is a member of the Uralic language family, the name of Hungary could be a result of regular sound changes of Ungrian/Ugrian, and the fact that the Eastern Slavs referred to Hungarians as Ǫgry/Ǫgrove seemed to confirm that. Current literature favors the hypothesis that it comes from the name of the Turkic tribe Onogur, there are numerous regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and the other Ugric languages. For example, Hungarian /aː/ corresponds to Khanty /o/ in certain positions, for example, Hungarian ház house vs. Khanty xot house, and Hungarian száz hundred vs. Khanty sot hundred. The distance between the Ugric and Finnic languages is greater, but the correspondences are also regular, during the later half of the 19th century, a competing hypothesis proposed a Turkic affinity of Hungarian. Following an academic debate known as Az ugor-török háború, the Finno-Ugric hypothesis was concluded the sounder of the two, foremost based on work by the German linguist Josef Budenz. The traditional view argues that the Hungarian language separated from its Ugric relatives in the first half of the 1st millennium b. c. e. in western Siberia, east of the southern Urals. The Hungarians gradually changed their lifestyle from settled hunters to nomadic pastoralists, in Hungarian, Iranian loans date back to the time immediately following the breakup of Ugric and probably span well over a millennium. Among these include tehén ‘cow’, tíz ‘ten’, tej ‘milk’, increasing archaeological evidence from present-day southern Bashkortostan found in the previous decades confirms the existence of Hungarian settlements between the Volga River and Ural Mountains. The Onogurs later had a influence on the language, especially between the 5th-9th centuries. This layer of Turkic loans is large and varied, and includes words borrowed from Oghur Turkic, e. g. borjú ‘calf’, dél ‘noon, many words related to agriculture, to state administration or even to family relations have such backgrounds. Hungarian syntax and grammar were not influenced in a dramatic way during these 300 years. After the arrival of the Hungarians into the Carpathian Basin the language came into contact with different speech communities, Turkic loans from this period come mainly from the Pechenegs and Cumanians who settled in Hungary during the 12th-13th centuries, e. g. koboz ‘cobza’, komondor ‘mop dog’. Hungarian borrowed many words from especially the neighbouring Slavic languages, in exchange, these languages also borrowed words from Hungarian, e. g. Serbo-Croatian ašov from Hung ásó ‘spade’. Approximately 1. 6% of the Romanian lexicon is of Hungarian origin, on the basis of the growing genetic evidence, the accepted origin theory is contested by geneticists too
