1.
Motherboard
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A motherboard is the main printed circuit board found in general purpose microcomputers and other expandable systems. It holds and allows communication between many of the electronic components of a system, such as the central processing unit and memory. In very old designs, copper wires were the discrete connections between card connector pins, but printed circuit boards soon became the standard practice, the Central Processing Unit, memory, and peripherals were housed on individual printed circuit boards, which were plugged into the backplate. The ubiquitous S-100 bus of the 1970s is an example of type of backplane system. During the late 1980s and 1990s, it became economical to move a number of peripheral functions onto the motherboard. Business PCs, workstations, and servers were more likely to need expansion cards, either for more robust functions, or for higher speeds, laptop and notebook computers that were developed in the 1990s integrated the most common peripherals. This even included motherboards with no upgradeable components, a trend that would continue as smaller systems were introduced after the turn of the century, memory, processors, network controllers, power source, and storage would be integrated into some systems. A motherboard provides the connections by which the other components of the system communicate. Unlike a backplane, it contains the central processing unit and hosts other subsystems. A typical desktop computer has its microprocessor, main memory, an important component of a motherboard is the microprocessors supporting chipset, which provides the supporting interfaces between the CPU and the various buses and external components. This chipset determines, to an extent, the features and capabilities of the motherboard, modern motherboards include, Sockets in which one or more microprocessors may be installed. In the case of CPUs in ball grid array packages, such as the VIA C3, as of 2007, some graphics cards require more power than the motherboard can provide, and thus dedicated connectors have been introduced to attach them directly to the power supply. Connectors for hard drives, typically SATA only, disk drives also connect to the power supply. Additionally, nearly all motherboards include logic and connectors to support commonly used devices, such as USB for mouse devices. Early personal computers such as the Apple II or IBM PC included only this minimal peripheral support on the motherboard, occasionally video interface hardware was also integrated into the motherboard, for example, on the Apple II and rarely on IBM-compatible computers such as the IBM PC Jr. Additional peripherals such as disk controllers and serial ports were provided as expansion cards, given the high thermal design power of high-speed computer CPUs and components, modern motherboards nearly always include heat sinks and mounting points for fans to dissipate excess heat. Motherboards are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes called computer form factor, however, the motherboards used in IBM-compatible systems are designed to fit various case sizes. As of 2007, most desktop computer motherboards use the ATX standard form factor — even those found in Macintosh and Sun computers, a cases motherboard and PSU form factor must all match, though some smaller form factor motherboards of the same family will fit larger cases
2.
Consumer electronics
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Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic or digital equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications, and home-office activities, in British English, they are often called brown goods by producers and sellers, to distinguish them from white goods such as washing machines and refrigerators. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, later products included telephones, personal computers, MP3 players, audio equipment, televisions and calculators. In the 2010s, consumer electronics stores often sell GPS, automotive electronics, video game consoles, electronic instruments, karaoke machines, digital cameras. Stores also sell digital cameras, camcorders, cell phones, some consumer electronics stores, such as Best Buy have also begun selling office and baby furniture. Consumer electronics stores may be bricks and mortar retail stores, online stores. The CEA estimated the value of 2015 consumer electronics sales at US$220 billion, for its first fifty years the phonograph turntable did not use electronics, the needle and soundhorn were purely mechanical technologies. However, in the 1920s radio broadcasting became the basis of production of radio receivers. The vacuum tubes that had made radios practical were used with record players as well, television was soon invented, but remained insignificant in the consumer market until the 1950s. The transistor, invented in 1947 by Bell Laboratories, led to significant research in the field of semiconductors in the early 1950s. The transistors advantages revolutionized that industry along with other electronics, by 1959 Fairchild Semiconductor had introduced the first planar transistor from which come the origins of Moores Law. Integrated circuits followed when manufacturers built circuits on a substrate using electrical connections between circuits within the chip itself. One overriding characteristic of consumer products is the trend of ever-falling prices. This is driven by gains in manufacturing efficiency and automation, lower costs as manufacturing has moved to lower-wage countries. Semiconductor components benefit from Moores Law, a principle which states that, for a given price. While consumer electronics continues in its trend of convergence, combining elements of many products, there is an ever increasing need to keep product information updated and comparable, for the consumer to make an informed choice. Style, price, specification, and performance are all relevant, there is a gradual shift towards e-commerce web-storefronts. Many products include Internet connectivity using technologies such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, products not traditionally associated with computer use now provide options to connect to the Internet or to a computer using a home network to provide access to digital content
3.
Moore's law
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Moores law is the observation that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. In 1975, looking forward to the decade, he revised the forecast to doubling every two years. The period is often quoted as 18 months because of Intel executive David House, Moores prediction proved accurate for several decades, and has been used in the semiconductor industry to guide long-term planning and to set targets for research and development. Advancements in digital electronics are strongly linked to Moores law, quality-adjusted microprocessor prices, memory capacity, sensors and even the number, digital electronics has contributed to world economic growth in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Moores law describes a force of technological and social change, productivity. Moores law is an observation or projection and not a physical or natural law, although the rate held steady from 1975 until around 2012, the rate was faster during the first decade. In general, it is not logically sound to extrapolate from the growth rate into the indefinite future. Intel stated in 2015 that the pace of advancement has slowed, starting at the 22 nm feature width around 2012, Brian Krzanich, CEO of Intel, announced that our cadence today is closer to two and a half years than two. This is scheduled to hold through the 10 nm width in late 2017 and he cited Moores 1975 revision as a precedent for the current deceleration, which results from technical challenges and is a natural part of the history of Moores law. However, in April 2016, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich stated that In my 34 years in the semiconductor industry, I have witnessed the advertised death of Moore’s Law no less than four times. As we progress from 14 nanometer technology to 10 nanometer and plan for 7 nanometer and 5 nanometer and even beyond, our plans are proof that Moore’s Law is alive and well. In January 2017, he declared that Ive heard the death of Moores law more times than anything else in my career, and Im here today to really show you and tell you that Moores Law is alive and well and flourishing. Today hardware has to be designed in a manner to keep up with Moores law. In turn, this means that software has to be written in a multi-threaded manner to take full advantage of the hardware. In 1959, Douglas Engelbart discussed the projected downscaling of integrated circuit size in the article Microelectronics, Engelbart presented his ideas at the 1960 International Solid-State Circuits Conference, where Moore was present in the audience. For the thirty-fifth anniversary issue of Electronics magazine, which was published on April 19,1965 and his response was a brief article entitled, Cramming more components onto integrated circuits. Within his editorial, he speculated that by 1975 it would be possible to contain as many as 65,000 components on a single quarter-inch semiconductor, the complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year. Certainly over the term this rate can be expected to continue
4.
PCI Express
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PCI Express, officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X, and AGP bus standards. More recent revisions of the PCIe standard provide hardware support for I/O virtualization, format specifications are maintained and developed by the PCI-SIG, a group of more than 900 companies that also maintain the conventional PCI specifications. PCIe 3.0 is the latest standard for expansion cards that are in production, conceptually, the PCI Express bus is a high-speed serial replacement of the older PCI/PCI-X bus. In contrast, PCI Express is based on point-to-point topology, with separate serial links connecting every device to the root complex. Due to its bus topology, access to the older PCI bus is arbitrated. Furthermore, the older PCI clocking scheme limits the bus clock to the slowest peripheral on the bus, in contrast, a PCI Express bus link supports full-duplex communication between any two endpoints, with no inherent limitation on concurrent access across multiple endpoints. In terms of bus protocol, PCI Express communication is encapsulated in packets, the work of packetizing and de-packetizing data and status-message traffic is handled by the transaction layer of the PCI Express port. Radical differences in electrical signaling and bus protocol require the use of a different mechanical form factor and expansion connectors, PCI slots, the PCI Express link between two devices can consist of anywhere from one to 32 lanes. In a multi-lane link, the data is striped across lanes. The lane count is automatically negotiated during device initialization, and can be restricted by either endpoint, for example, a single-lane PCI Express card can be inserted into a multi-lane slot, and the initialization cycle auto-negotiates the highest mutually supported lane count. The link can dynamically down-configure itself to use fewer lanes, providing a failure tolerance in case bad or unreliable lanes are present, the PCI Express standard defines slots and connectors for multiple widths, ×1, ×4, ×8, ×12, ×16 and ×32. As a point of reference, a PCI-X device and a PCI Express 1.0 device using four lanes have roughly the same peak single-direction transfer rate of 1064 MB/s, PCI Express devices communicate via a logical connection called an interconnect or link. A link is a point-to-point communication channel between two PCI Express ports allowing both of them to send and receive ordinary PCI requests and interrupts, at the physical level, a link is composed of one or more lanes. Low-speed peripherals use a link, while a graphics adapter typically uses a much wider and faster 16-lane link. A lane is composed of two differential signaling pairs, with one pair for receiving data and the other for transmitting, thus, each lane is composed of four wires or signal traces. Conceptually, each lane is used as a byte stream. Physical PCI Express links may contain one to 32 lanes. Lane counts are written with an × prefix, with ×16 being the largest size in common use, despite being transmitted simultaneously as a single word, signals on a parallel interface have different travel duration and arrive at their destinations at different times
5.
Manufacturing
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Manufacturing is the value added to production of merchandise for use or sale using labour and machines, tools, chemical and biological processing, or formulation. Manufacturing engineering or manufacturing process are the steps through which raw materials are transformed into a final product, the manufacturing process begins with the product design, and materials specification from which the product is made. These materials are modified through manufacturing processes to become the required part. Manufacturing takes turns under all types of economic systems, in a free market economy, manufacturing is usually directed toward the mass production of products for sale to consumers at a profit. In a collectivist economy, manufacturing is more directed by the state to supply a centrally planned economy. In mixed market economies, manufacturing occurs under some degree of government regulation, modern manufacturing includes all intermediate processes required the production and integration of a products components. Some industries, such as semiconductor and steel manufacturers use the term fabrication instead, the manufacturing sector is closely connected with engineering and industrial design. Examples of major manufacturers in North America include General Motors Corporation, General Electric, Procter & Gamble, General Dynamics, Boeing, Pfizer, examples in Europe include Volkswagen Group, Siemens, and Michelin. Examples in Asia include Sony, Huawei, Lenovo, Toyota, Samsung, in its earliest form, manufacturing was usually carried out by a single skilled artisan with assistants. In much of the world, the guild system protected the privileges. Before the Industrial Revolution, most manufacturing occurred in rural areas, entrepreneurs organized a number of manufacturing households into a single enterprise through the putting-out system. Toll manufacturing is an arrangement whereby a first firm with specialized equipment processes raw materials or semi-finished goods for a second firm, manufacturing provides important material support for national infrastructure and for national defense. On the other hand, most manufacturing may involve significant social and environmental costs, the clean-up costs of hazardous waste, for example, may outweigh the benefits of a product that creates it. Hazardous materials may expose workers to health risks and these costs are now well known and there is effort to address them by improving efficiency, reducing waste, using industrial symbiosis, and eliminating harmful chemicals. The negative costs of manufacturing can also be addressed legally, developed countries regulate manufacturing activity with labor laws and environmental laws. Across the globe, manufacturers can be subject to regulations and pollution taxes to offset the costs of manufacturing activities. Labor unions and craft guilds have played a role in the negotiation of worker rights. Environment laws and labor protections that are available in developed nations may not be available in the third world, tort law and product liability impose additional costs on manufacturing
6.
Computer cooling
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Computer cooling is required to remove the waste heat produced by computer components, to keep components within permissible operating temperature limits. Components that are susceptible to malfunction or permanent failure if overheated include integrated circuits such as CPUs, chipset, graphics cards. Use of heatsinks cooled by airflow reduces the temperature rise produced by an amount of heat. Attention to patterns of airflow can prevent the development of hotspots, computer fans are widely used along with heatsinks to reduce temperature by actively exhausting hot air. There are also more exotic cooling techniques, such as liquid cooling, all modern day processors are designed to cut out or reduce their voltage and/or clock speed if the internal temperature of the processor exceeds a specified limit. Cooling may be designed to reduce the ambient temperature within the case of a computer e. g. by exhausting hot air, components commonly individually cooled include the CPU, GPU and the northbridge. Integrated circuits are the generators of heat in modern computers. For reliable operation, the temperature must never exceed a maximum permissible value unique to each component. For semiconductors, instantaneous junction temperature, rather than component case, heatsink, Cooling can be changed by, Dust acting as a thermal insulator and impeding airflow, thereby reducing heat sink and fan performance. Poor heat transfer due to thermal contact between components to be cooled and cooling devices. This can be improved by the use of compounds to even out surface imperfections. Before an overheating component reaches this point, it may be throttled until temperatures fall below a point using dynamic frequency scaling technology. For desktop and notebook computers, throttling is often controlled at the BIOS level, as electronic computers became larger and more complex, cooling of the active components became a critical factor for reliable operation. Early vacuum-tube computers, with large cabinets, could rely on natural or forced air circulation for cooling. However, solid state devices were packed much more densely and had lower operating temperatures. Starting in 1965, IBM and other manufacturers of mainframe computers sponsored intensive research into the physics of cooling densely packed integrated circuits, mathematical analysis was used to predict temperature rises of components for each possible cooling system geometry. IBM developed three generations of the Thermal Conduction Module which used a cold plate in direct thermal contact with integrated circuit packages. Each package had a thermally conductive pin pressed onto it, and helium gas surrounded chips, the design could remove up to 27 watts from a chip and up to 2000 watts per module, while maintaining chip package temperatures around 50 °C
7.
Nintendo DS Lite
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The Nintendo DS Lite is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It is a slimmer, brighter, and more lightweight redesign of the original Nintendo DS and it was announced on January 26,2006, more than a month before its initial release in Japan on March 2,2006 due to overwhelming demand for the original model. It has been released in Australia, North America, Europe, New Zealand, Singapore, and defined regions in South America, the Middle East, and East Asia. As of March 31,2014, shipments of the DS Lite have reached 93.86 million units worldwide, a larger model of the DS Lite was an unreleased alternative to the DS Lite. It was ready for production, but Nintendo decided against its release as sales of the DS Lite were still strong. Instead Nintendo prepared the DSi and released a DSi XL version of that console a year later and this larger DS Lite featured an increased screen size of 3.8 inches and lacked the wide viewing angle of the DSi XL. On some Japanese auction sites it was being offered for prices as high as ¥40,000, even though Nintendo managed to release 550,000 units in March 2006, the DS Lite was sold out soon after its launch. The shortage was supposed to be eased after Nintendo released 700,000 Nintendo DS Lites during April 2006, however, retailers in Tokyo sold out yet again by late May 2006. This shortage would last for most of 2006 and 2007 with retailers all around the country having permanent ads apologizing for the shortage, when the product arrived, it would sell out within days. Since restocking was erratic, looking for the product often involved several visits to different retailers and this was still the case in Japan as of April 25,2007, with stores turning away potential customers every day and selling out quickly. The Nintendo DS Lite was released in Australia on June 1,2006 for A$199.95 and it came with a demo for Dr. Kawashimas Brain Training, How Old Is Your Brain. As of mid 2009, the device sells for approximately A$188.00, the Nintendo DS Lite was released on June 11,2006, for US$129.99 in the United States, and CA$149.99 in Canada. There have been reports of North American Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart. On June 12,2006, GameSpot reported that North American Nintendo DS Lites had sold out at major online retailers, as well as several brick-and-mortar stores. Shortly after its launch, the DS Lite was sold out at major US retailers, however, the Nintendo DS Lite was officially released in Europe on June 23,2006, for £99.99 in the UK, €149.99 in the Eurozone. In Finland and Sweden, the DS Lite was released on June 22,2006, in just 10 days, Nintendo announced it had sold 200,000 Nintendo DS Lites in Europe. Later, GamesIndustry. biz reported that Nintendo had indeed confirmed that A number of White DS Lite made for the UK market were stolen in Hong Kong, Nintendo opened its latest subsidiary, Nintendo of Korea, led by Mineo Kouda, on July 20,2006. The DS Lite is the first console to be released in South Korea by the subsidiary, popular Korean actor Jang Dong-gun and Ahn Sung-ki has been enlisted to help promote the console
8.
Handheld game console
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A handheld game console is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls, and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video consoles and contain the console, screen, speakers. In 1976, Mattel introduced the first handheld game with the release of Auto Race. Later, several companies—including Coleco and Milton Bradley—made their own single-game, the oldest true handheld game console with interchangeable cartridges is the Milton Bradley Microvision in 1979. Nintendo is credited with popularizing the handheld console concept with the release of the Game Boy in 1989, the origins of handheld game consoles are found in handheld and tabletop electronic game devices of the 1970s and early 1980s. These electronic devices are capable of playing only a game, they fit in the palm of the hand or on a tabletop. In 1978, handheld games were described by Popular Electronics magazine as nonvideo electronic games. This synthesis happened in 1976, when Mattel began work on a line of calculator-sized sports games that became the worlds first handheld electronic games. The project began when Michael Katz, Mattels new product category marketing director, told the engineers in the group to design a game the size of a calculator. Our big success was something that I conceptualized—the first handheld game, I asked the design group to see if they could come up with a game that was electronic that was the same size as a calculator. —Michael Katz, former marketing director, Mattel Toys, the result was the 1976 release of Auto Race. Followed by Football later in 1977, the two games were so successful that according to Katz, these simple electronic handheld games turned into a $400 million category, Mattel would later win the honor of being recognized by the industry for innovation in handheld game device displays. Soon, other manufacturers including Coleco, Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, Entex, in 1979 the LCD-based Microvision, designed by Smith Engineering and distributed by Milton-Bradley, became the first handheld game console and the first to use interchangeable game cartridges. In 1979, Gunpei Yokoi, traveling on a bullet train, Yokoi then thought of an idea for a watch that doubled as a miniature game machine for killing time. Starting in 1980, Nintendo began to release a series of games designed by Yokoi called the Game & Watch games. For later, more complicated Game & Watch games, Yokoi invented a cross shaped directional pad or D-pad for control of on-screen characters, the result was the Nintendo Game Boy. In 1982, the Bandai LCD Solarpower was the first solar-powered gaming device, some of its games, such as the horror-themed game Terror House, features two LCD panels, one stacked on the other, for an early 3D effect. In 1983, Takara Tomys Tomytronic 3D simulates 3D by having two LED panels that were lit by light through a window on top of the device
9.
Asus Eee PC
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The Asus Eee PC is a netbook computer line from ASUSTeK Computer Incorporated, and a part of the Asus Eee product family. At the time of its introduction in late 2007, it was noted for its combination of a lightweight, Linux-based operating system, solid-state drive, newer models added the options of Microsoft Windows operating system, rotating media hard disk drives and initially retailed for up to 500 euros. The first Eee PC was a milestone in the computer business, launching the netbook category of small. According to Asus, the name Eee derives from the three Es, an abbreviation of its slogan for the device, Easy to learn, Easy to work. In January 2013, Asus officially ended production of their Eee PC series, citing declining sales due to consumers favoring tablets, however, they subsequently restarted the line with the release of the EeeBook series in 2015. Asus announced two Eee PC models at Computex Taipei 2007, the 701 and the 1001, the 701 base model Eee PC 4G was released on October 16,2007 in Taiwan. Both the price and the size of the device are small in comparison with similar Ultra-Mobile PCs, the Eee series is a response to the XO-1 notebook from the One Laptop per Child initiative. At the Intel Developer Forum 2007, Asus demonstrated the Classmate PC and the Eee PC, and listed specifications for four models of the Eee PC. In some countries, the products have the marketing names EeePC 8G, 4G, 4G Surf, the 4G Surf uses socketed RAM but some revisions do not have a door to access the slot. Asus released a version of the Eee PC with Microsoft Windows XP pre-installed in January 2008, in Japan, the version is known as the 4G-X. Some users of the 701 physically modified the machine to replace the 4 GB solid state drive, the 8 GB versions of the 700 series leave the SSD area on the motherboard empty and connect their SSD as an internal PCI Express Mini Card. Replacing the SSD requires only an SSD compatible with the connector, the SSD area on the motherboard may also be used to install other devices, or accommodate physically larger SSDs, or even to hard-solder an SSD salvaged from a 2 GB or 4 GB700 model. As this requires only soldering on a new device without removing an old one, the Eee 900 series was launched in Hong Kong on April 16,2008, and in the UK on May 1,2008 for £329. It was launched in the US on May 12,2008, the Eee 900 series dimensions are a little larger than the 70x models–measuring 225 ×165 ×35 mm and weighing around 1 kg. The machine has a multi-touch trackpad allowing two-finger scroll and zoom via a pinch gesture, the Intel Atom version is named the EeePC 900a and comes with an 8GB or 16 GB SSD. Some of these Eee PCs also have a 4 GB SSD installed similarly to that in the 701 for a storage space of 20GB. Those that do not are named the Asus EEE900 16G, the MS Windows XP version is named the EeePC900 Win and also comes in two versions, one with a total storage of 12 GB and one with 16 GB. The Linux 20G version is sold for the price as the MS Windows 12G version
10.
Netbook
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Netbook is a generic name given to a category of small, lightweight, legacy-free, and inexpensive laptop computers that were introduced in 2007. Netbooks compete in the market segment as tablet computers and Chromebooks. Over the course of their evolution, netbooks have ranged in size from below 5 screen diagonal to 12, a typical weight is 1 kg. In the short period since their appearance, netbooks grew in size and features, by 2011, the increasing popularity of tablet computers —a different form factor, but with improved computing capabilities and lower production cost—had led to a decline in netbook sales. Many major netbook producing companies stopped producing them by the end of 2012, many netbook products were replaced on the market by Chromebooks, a variation on the network computer concept in the form of a netbook. With the rise of Chromebooks in 2014, Microsoft began a new effort at creating viable netbooks, HP re-entered the non-Chromebook netbook market with the Stream 11 in 2014. The origins of the netbook can be traced to the highly popular Toshiba range of Libretto sub-notebooks, the 6 Libretto 20 dates back to early 1996 and weighed only 840g. Apple also had a line of PowerBook Duos that were ultra-portable Macintosh laptops in the mid 90s, more recently, Psions now-discontinued netBook line, the OLPC XO-1 and the Palm Foleo were all small, portable, network-enabled computers. The generic use of the netbook, however, began in 2007 when Asus unveiled the Asus Eee PC. Originally designed for emerging markets, the 23 cm ×17 cm device weighed about 0, following the Eee PC, Everex launched its Linux-based CloudBook, Windows XP and Windows Vista models were also introduced and MSI released the Wind—others soon followed suit. When the first Asus Eee PC sold over 300,000 units in four months, companies such as Dell and Acer took note, and while the OLPC XO-1 targets a different audience than do the other manufacturers netbooks, it appears that OLPC is now facing competition. Developing countries now have a choice of vendors, from which they can choose which low-cost netbook they prefer. By late 2008, netbooks had begun to market share away from notebooks. This is illustrated by the fact that typical system performance of a netbook is on the level of a mainstream PC in 2001 and it is estimated that almost thirty times more netbooks were sold in 2008 than in 2007. This trend is reinforced by the rise of web-based applications as well as networking and, according to Wired Magazine. The ongoing recession is also helping with the sales of netbooks. These were provided under Prime Minister Kevin Rudds Digital Education Revolution, the netbooks ran Windows 7 Enterprise. These netbooks were secured with Computrace Lojack for laptops that the police can use to track the device if it is lost or stolen, the NSW DET retains ownership of these netbooks until the student graduates from Year 12, when the student can keep it
11.
Laptop
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Laptops are folded shut for transportation, and thus are suitable for mobile use. Although originally there was a distinction between laptops and notebooks, the former being bigger and heavier than the latter, as of 2014, there is often no longer any difference. Laptops are commonly used in a variety of settings, such as at work, in education, Internet surfing using sites such as YouTube and for personal multimedia, most 2016-era laptops also have integrated webcams and built-in microphones. Laptops can be powered either from a battery or by an external power supply from an AC adapter. Hardware specifications, such as the speed and memory capacity. Design elements, form factor, and construction can also vary significantly between models depending on intended use, as portable computers evolved into the modern laptop, they became widely used for a variety of purposes. The terms laptop and notebook are used interchangeably to describe a computer in English. Regardless of the etymology, by the late 1990s, the terms were interchangeable, as the personal computer became feasible in 1971, the idea of a portable personal computer soon followed. A personal, portable information manipulator was imagined by Alan Kay at Xerox PARC in 1968, the IBM Special Computer APL Machine Portable was demonstrated in 1973. This prototype was based on the IBM PALM processor, the IBM5100, the first commercially available portable computer, appeared in September 1975, and was based on the SCAMP prototype. As 8-bit CPU machines became widely accepted, the number of portables increased rapidly, the Osborne 1, released in 1981, used the Zilog Z80 and weighed 23.6 pounds. It had no battery, a 5 in CRT screen, in the same year the first laptop-sized portable computer, the Epson HX-20, was announced. The Epson had an LCD screen, a battery. Both Tandy/RadioShack and HP also produced portable computers of varying designs during this period, the first laptops using the flip form factor appeared in the early 1980s. The Dulmont Magnum was released in Australia in 1981–82, but was not marketed internationally until 1984–85, the US$8,150 GRiD Compass 1101, released in 1982, was used at NASA and by the military, among others. The Sharp PC-5000, Ampere and Gavilan SC released in 1983, the Gavilan SC was the first computer described as a laptop by its manufacturer, while the Ampere had a modern clamshell design. The Toshiba T1100 won acceptance not only among PC experts but the market as a way to have PC portability. From 1983 onward, several new techniques were developed and included in laptops, including the touchpad, the pointing stick
12.
Computer form factor
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In computing, the form factor is the specification of a motherboard – the dimensions, power supply type, location of mounting holes, number of ports on the back panel, etc. Traditionally, the most significant specification is for that of the motherboard, Small form factors have been developed and implemented. A PC motherboard is the circuit board within a typical desktop computer. For example, the introduction of AGP and, more recently, however, the standardized size and layout of motherboards have changed much more slowly and are controlled by their own standards. The list of components required on a motherboard changes far more slowly than the components themselves, although it is a slower process, form factors do evolve regularly in response to changing demands. IBMs long-standing standard, AT, was superseded in 1995 by the current industry standard ATX, the latest update to the ATX standard was released in 2007. A divergent standard by chipset manufacturer VIA called EPIA is based upon smaller form factors, differences between form factors are most apparent in terms of their intended market sector, and involve variations in size, design compromises and typical features. Most modern computers have similar requirements, so form factor differences tend to be based upon subsets and supersets of these. The smallest motherboards may sacrifice CPU flexibility in favor of a fixed manufacturers choice, ATX case compatible, Different form factors PC/104 is an embedded computer standard which defines both a form factor and computer bus. PC/104 is intended for embedded computing environments, single board computers built to this form factor are often sold by COTS vendors, which benefits users who want a customized rugged system, without months of design and paper work. The PC/104 form factor was standardized by the PC/104 Consortium in 1992, an IEEE standard corresponding to PC/104 was drafted as IEEE P996.1, but never ratified. The 5.75 ×8.0 in Embedded Board eXpandable specification, as compared with PC/104 modules, these larger SBCs tend to have everything of a full PC on them, including application oriented interfaces like audio, analog, or digital I/O in many cases. Also its much easier to fit Pentium CPUs, whereas its a tight squeeze to do so on a PC/104 SBC, mini PC is a PC small form factor very close in size to an external CD or DVD drive. Mini PCs have proven popular for use as HTPCs, aOpen XC mini Apple Mac mini Intel NUC Gigabyte Brix Zotac ZBOX Asus Vivopc Hard-disk-drive form factors Small form factor The official Intel Form factors website containing form factor descriptions
