1.
Gigabyte Technology
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Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. is an international manufacturer and distributor of computer hardware products. Gigabyte is a vendor, with shipments of 4.8 million motherboards in Q12015. Gigabyte was ranked 17th in Taiwans 2010 Top 20 Global Brands by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, the company is publicly held and traded on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, stock id number TWSE,2376. Gigabyte Technology was established in 1986 by Pei-Cheng Yeh, gigabytes components are used in Alienware, Falcon Northwest, CybertronPC and Origin PC. A key feature of the Gigabyte dating back to 2006 were its ultra-durable motherboards, on 8 August 2006 Gigabyte announced a joint venture with Asus. Gigabyte developed the worlds first software-controlled power supply in July 2007, an innovative method to charge the iPad and iPhone on the computer was introduced by Gigabyte in April 2010. Gigabyte launched the world’s first Z68 motherboard on 31 May 2011, with an on-board mSATA connection for Intel SSD, on 2 April 2012, Gigabyte developed the worlds first motherboard with 60A ICs from International Rectifier
2.
Decimal
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This article aims to be an accessible introduction. For the mathematical definition, see Decimal representation, the decimal numeral system has ten as its base, which, in decimal, is written 10, as is the base in every positional numeral system. It is the base most widely used by modern civilizations. Decimal fractions have terminating decimal representations and other fractions have repeating decimal representations, Decimal notation is the writing of numbers in a base-ten numeral system. Examples are Brahmi numerals, Greek numerals, Hebrew numerals, Roman numerals, Roman numerals have symbols for the decimal powers and secondary symbols for half these values. Brahmi numerals have symbols for the nine numbers 1–9, the nine decades 10–90, plus a symbol for 100, Chinese numerals have symbols for 1–9, and additional symbols for powers of ten, which in modern usage reach 1072. Positional decimal systems include a zero and use symbols for the ten values to represent any number, positional notation uses positions for each power of ten, units, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc. The position of each digit within a number denotes the multiplier multiplied with that position has a value ten times that of the position to its right. There were at least two independent sources of positional decimal systems in ancient civilization, the Chinese counting rod system. Ten is the number which is the count of fingers and thumbs on both hands, the English word digit as well as its translation in many languages is also the anatomical term for fingers and toes. In English, decimal means tenth, decimate means reduce by a tenth, however, the symbols used in different areas are not identical, for instance, Western Arabic numerals differ from the forms used by other Arab cultures. A decimal fraction is a fraction the denominator of which is a power of ten. g, Decimal fractions 8/10, 1489/100, 24/100000, and 58900/10000 are expressed in decimal notation as 0.8,14.89,0.00024,5.8900 respectively. In English-speaking, some Latin American and many Asian countries, a period or raised period is used as the separator, in many other countries, particularly in Europe. The integer part, or integral part of a number is the part to the left of the decimal separator. The part from the separator to the right is the fractional part. It is usual for a number that consists only of a fractional part to have a leading zero in its notation. Any rational number with a denominator whose only prime factors are 2 and/or 5 may be expressed as a decimal fraction and has a finite decimal expansion. 1/2 =0.5 1/20 =0.05 1/5 =0.2 1/50 =0.02 1/4 =0.25 1/40 =0.025 1/25 =0.04 1/8 =0.125 1/125 =0.008 1/10 =0
3.
Metric prefix
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A metric prefix is a unit prefix that precedes a basic unit of measure to indicate a multiple or fraction of the unit. While all metric prefixes in use today are decadic, historically there have been a number of binary metric prefixes as well. Each prefix has a symbol that is prepended to the unit symbol. The prefix kilo-, for example, may be added to gram to indicate multiplication by one thousand, the prefix milli-, likewise, may be added to metre to indicate division by one thousand, one millimetre is equal to one thousandth of a metre. Decimal multiplicative prefixes have been a feature of all forms of the system with six dating back to the systems introduction in the 1790s. Metric prefixes have even been prepended to non-metric units, the SI prefixes are standardized for use in the International System of Units by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in resolutions dating from 1960 to 1991. Since 2009, they have formed part of the International System of Quantities, the BIPM specifies twenty prefixes for the International System of Units. Each prefix name has a symbol which is used in combination with the symbols for units of measure. For example, the symbol for kilo- is k, and is used to produce km, kg, and kW, which are the SI symbols for kilometre, kilogram, prefixes corresponding to an integer power of one thousand are generally preferred. Hence 100 m is preferred over 1 hm or 10 dam, the prefixes hecto, deca, deci, and centi are commonly used for everyday purposes, and the centimetre is especially common. However, some building codes require that the millimetre be used in preference to the centimetre, because use of centimetres leads to extensive usage of decimal points. Prefixes may not be used in combination and this also applies to mass, for which the SI base unit already contains a prefix. For example, milligram is used instead of microkilogram, in the arithmetic of measurements having units, the units are treated as multiplicative factors to values. If they have prefixes, all but one of the prefixes must be expanded to their numeric multiplier,1 km2 means one square kilometre, or the area of a square of 1000 m by 1000 m and not 1000 square metres. 2 Mm3 means two cubic megametres, or the volume of two cubes of 1000000 m by 1000000 m by 1000000 m or 2×1018 m3, and not 2000000 cubic metres, examples 5 cm = 5×10−2 m =5 ×0.01 m =0. The prefixes, including those introduced after 1960, are used with any metric unit, metric prefixes may also be used with non-metric units. The choice of prefixes with a unit is usually dictated by convenience of use. Unit prefixes for amounts that are larger or smaller than those actually encountered are seldom used
4.
Megabyte
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The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB, but sometimes MByte is used, the unit prefix mega is a multiplier of 1000000 in the International System of Units. Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes of information and this definition has been incorporated into the International System of Quantities. However, in the computer and information fields, several other definitions are used that arose for historical reasons of convenience. A common usage has been to one megabyte as 1048576bytes. However, most standards bodies have deprecated this usage in favor of a set of binary prefixes, less common is a convention that used the megabyte to mean 1000×1024 bytes. The megabyte is commonly used to measure either 10002 bytes or 10242 bytes, the interpretation of using base 1024 originated as a compromise technical jargon for the byte multiples that needed to be expressed by the powers of 2 but lacked a convenient name. As 1024 approximates 1000, roughly corresponding to the SI prefix kilo-, in 1998 the International Electrotechnical Commission proposed standards for binary prefixes requiring the use of megabyte to strictly denote 10002 bytes and mebibyte to denote 10242 bytes. By the end of 2009, the IEC Standard had been adopted by the IEEE, EU, ISO, the Mac OS X10.6 file manager is a notable example of this usage in software. Since Snow Leopard, file sizes are reported in decimal units, base 21 MB =1048576 bytes is the definition used by Microsoft Windows in reference to computer memory, such as RAM. This definition is synonymous with the binary prefix mebibyte. Mixed 1 MB =1024000 bytes is the used to describe the formatted capacity of the 1.44 MB3. 5inch HD floppy disk. Semiconductor memory doubles in size for each address lane added to an integrated circuit package, the capacity of a disk drive is the product of the sector size, number of sectors per track, number of tracks per side, and the number of disk platters in the drive. Changes in any of these factors would not usually double the size, sector sizes were set as powers of two for convenience in processing. It was an extension to give the capacity of a disk drive in multiples of the sector size, giving a mix of decimal. Depending on compression methods and file format, a megabyte of data can roughly be, a 4 megapixel JPEG image with normal compression. Approximately 1 minute of 128 kbit/s MP3 compressed music,6 seconds of uncompressed CD audio. A typical English book volume in plain text format, the human genome consists of DNA representing 800 MB of data
5.
Binary prefix
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A binary prefix is a unit prefix for multiples of units in data processing, data transmission, and digital information, notably the bit and the byte, to indicate multiplication by a power of 2. The computer industry has used the units kilobyte, megabyte, and gigabyte, and the corresponding symbols KB, MB. In citations of main memory capacity, gigabyte customarily means 1073741824 bytes, as this is the third power of 1024, and 1024 is a power of two, this usage is referred to as a binary measurement. In most other contexts, the uses the multipliers kilo, mega, giga, etc. in a manner consistent with their meaning in the International System of Units. For example, a 500 gigabyte hard disk holds 500000000000 bytes, in contrast with the binary prefix usage, this use is described as a decimal prefix, as 1000 is a power of 10. The use of the same unit prefixes with two different meanings has caused confusion, in 2008, the IEC prefixes were incorporated into the ISO/IEC80000 standard. Early computers used one of two addressing methods to access the memory, binary or decimal. For example, the IBM701 used binary and could address 2048 words of 36 bits each, while the IBM702 used decimal, by the mid-1960s, binary addressing had become the standard architecture in most computer designs, and main memory sizes were most commonly powers of two. Early computer system documentation would specify the size with an exact number such as 4096,8192. These are all powers of two, and furthermore are small multiples of 210, or 1024, as storage capacities increased, several different methods were developed to abbreviate these quantities. The method most commonly used today uses prefixes such as kilo, mega, giga, and corresponding symbols K, M, and G, the prefixes kilo- and mega-, meaning 1000 and 1000000 respectively, were commonly used in the electronics industry before World War II. Along with giga- or G-, meaning 1000000000, they are now known as SI prefixes after the International System of Units, introduced in 1960 to formalize aspects of the metric system. The International System of Units does not define units for digital information and this usage is not consistent with the SI. Compliance with the SI requires that the prefixes take their 1000-based meaning, the use of K in the binary sense as in a 32K core meaning 32 ×1024 words, i. e.32768 words, can be found as early as 1959. Gene Amdahls seminal 1964 article on IBM System/360 used 1K to mean 1024 and this style was used by other computer vendors, the CDC7600 System Description made extensive use of K as 1024. Thus the first binary prefix was born, the exact values 32768 words,65536 words and 131072 words would then be described as 32K, 65K and 131K. This style was used from about 1965 to 1975 and these two styles were used loosely around the same time, sometimes by the same company. In discussions of binary-addressed memories, the size was evident from context
6.
Byte
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The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of used to encode a single character of text in a computer. The size of the byte has historically been hardware dependent and no standards existed that mandated the size. The de-facto standard of eight bits is a convenient power of two permitting the values 0 through 255 for one byte, the international standard IEC 80000-13 codified this common meaning. Many types of applications use information representable in eight or fewer bits, the popularity of major commercial computing architectures has aided in the ubiquitous acceptance of the 8-bit size. The unit symbol for the byte was designated as the upper-case letter B by the IEC and IEEE in contrast to the bit, internationally, the unit octet, symbol o, explicitly denotes a sequence of eight bits, eliminating the ambiguity of the byte. It is a respelling of bite to avoid accidental mutation to bit. Early computers used a variety of four-bit binary coded decimal representations and these representations included alphanumeric characters and special graphical symbols. S. Government and universities during the 1960s, the prominence of the System/360 led to the ubiquitous adoption of the eight-bit storage size, while in detail the EBCDIC and ASCII encoding schemes are different. In the early 1960s, AT&T introduced digital telephony first on long-distance trunk lines and these used the eight-bit µ-law encoding. This large investment promised to reduce costs for eight-bit data. The development of microprocessors in the 1970s popularized this storage size. A four-bit quantity is called a nibble, also nybble. The term octet is used to specify a size of eight bits. It is used extensively in protocol definitions, historically, the term octad or octade was used to denote eight bits as well at least in Western Europe, however, this usage is no longer common. The exact origin of the term is unclear, but it can be found in British, Dutch, and German sources of the 1960s and 1970s, and throughout the documentation of Philips mainframe computers. The unit symbol for the byte is specified in IEC 80000-13, IEEE1541, in the International System of Quantities, B is the symbol of the bel, a unit of logarithmic power ratios named after Alexander Graham Bell, creating a conflict with the IEC specification. However, little danger of confusion exists, because the bel is a used unit
7.
International System of Units
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The International System of Units is the modern form of the metric system, and is the most widely used system of measurement. It comprises a coherent system of units of measurement built on seven base units, the system also establishes a set of twenty prefixes to the unit names and unit symbols that may be used when specifying multiples and fractions of the units. The system was published in 1960 as the result of an initiative began in 1948. It is based on the system of units rather than any variant of the centimetre-gram-second system. The motivation for the development of the SI was the diversity of units that had sprung up within the CGS systems, the International System of Units has been adopted by most developed countries, however, the adoption has not been universal in all English-speaking countries. The metric system was first implemented during the French Revolution with just the metre and kilogram as standards of length, in the 1830s Carl Friedrich Gauss laid the foundations for a coherent system based on length, mass, and time. In the 1860s a group working under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science formulated the requirement for a coherent system of units with base units and derived units. Meanwhile, in 1875, the Treaty of the Metre passed responsibility for verification of the kilogram, in 1921, the Treaty was extended to include all physical quantities including electrical units originally defined in 1893. The units associated with these quantities were the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, in 1971, a seventh base quantity, amount of substance represented by the mole, was added to the definition of SI. On 11 July 1792, the proposed the names metre, are, litre and grave for the units of length, area, capacity. The committee also proposed that multiples and submultiples of these units were to be denoted by decimal-based prefixes such as centi for a hundredth, on 10 December 1799, the law by which the metric system was to be definitively adopted in France was passed. Prior to this, the strength of the magnetic field had only been described in relative terms. The technique used by Gauss was to equate the torque induced on a magnet of known mass by the earth’s magnetic field with the torque induced on an equivalent system under gravity. The resultant calculations enabled him to assign dimensions based on mass, length, a French-inspired initiative for international cooperation in metrology led to the signing in 1875 of the Metre Convention. Initially the convention only covered standards for the metre and the kilogram, one of each was selected at random to become the International prototype metre and International prototype kilogram that replaced the mètre des Archives and kilogramme des Archives respectively. Each member state was entitled to one of each of the prototypes to serve as the national prototype for that country. Initially its prime purpose was a periodic recalibration of national prototype metres. The official language of the Metre Convention is French and the version of all official documents published by or on behalf of the CGPM is the French-language version
8.
Random-access memory
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Random-access memory is a form of computer data storage which stores frequently used program instructions to increase the general speed of a system. A random-access memory device allows data items to be read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the location of data inside the memory. RAM contains multiplexing and demultiplexing circuitry, to connect the lines to the addressed storage for reading or writing the entry. Usually more than one bit of storage is accessed by the same address, in todays technology, random-access memory takes the form of integrated circuits. RAM is normally associated with types of memory, where stored information is lost if power is removed. Other types of non-volatile memories exist that allow access for read operations. These include most types of ROM and a type of memory called NOR-Flash. Integrated-circuit RAM chips came into the market in the early 1970s, with the first commercially available DRAM chip, early computers used relays, mechanical counters or delay lines for main memory functions. Ultrasonic delay lines could only reproduce data in the order it was written, drum memory could be expanded at relatively low cost but efficient retrieval of memory items required knowledge of the physical layout of the drum to optimize speed. Latches built out of vacuum tube triodes, and later, out of transistors, were used for smaller and faster memories such as registers. Such registers were relatively large and too costly to use for large amounts of data, the first practical form of random-access memory was the Williams tube starting in 1947. It stored data as electrically charged spots on the face of a cathode ray tube, since the electron beam of the CRT could read and write the spots on the tube in any order, memory was random access. The capacity of the Williams tube was a few hundred to around a thousand bits, but it was smaller, faster. In fact, rather than the Williams tube memory being designed for the SSEM, magnetic-core memory was invented in 1947 and developed up until the mid-1970s. It became a form of random-access memory, relying on an array of magnetized rings. By changing the sense of each rings magnetization, data could be stored with one bit stored per ring, since every ring had a combination of address wires to select and read or write it, access to any memory location in any sequence was possible. Magnetic core memory was the form of memory system until displaced by solid-state memory in integrated circuits. Data was stored in the capacitance of each transistor, and had to be periodically refreshed every few milliseconds before the charge could leak away
9.
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
10.
International System of Quantities
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The International System of Quantities is a system based on seven base quantities, length, mass, time, electric current, thermodynamic temperature, amount of substance, and luminous intensity. Other quantities such as area, pressure, and electrical resistance are derived from these base quantities by clear, the ISQ defines the quantities that are measured with the SI units and also includes many other quantities in modern science and technology. The ISQ is defined in the international standard ISO/IEC80000, and was finalised in 2009 with the publication of ISO 80000-1. The 14 parts of ISO/IEC80000 define quantities used in disciplines such as mechanics, light, acoustics, electromagnetism, information technology, chemistry, mathematics. A base quantity is a quantity in a subset of a given system of quantities that is chosen by convention. The ISQ defines seven base quantities, the symbols for them, as for other quantities, are written in italics. The dimension of a quantity does not include magnitude or units. The conventional symbolic representation of the dimension of a quantity is a single upper-case letter in roman sans-serif type. A derived quantity is a quantity in a system of quantities that is a defined in terms of the quantities of that system. The ISQ defines many derived quantities, the conventional symbolic representation of the dimension of a derived quantity is the product of powers of the dimensions of the base quantities according to the definition of the derived quantity. The dimension of a quantity is denoted by L a M b T c I d Θ e N f J g, the symbol may be omitted if its exponent is zero. For example, in the ISQ, the quantity dimension of velocity is denoted L T −1, the following table lists some quantities defined by the ISQ. A quantity of one is historically known as a dimensionless quantity, all its dimensional exponents are zero. Such a quantity can be regarded as a quantity in the form of the ratio of two quantities of the same dimension. In the ISQ, the level of a quantity Q is defined as logr, an example of level is sound pressure level. All levels of the ISQ are derived quantities, B. N. Taylor, Ambler Thompson, International System of Units, National Institute of Standards and Technology 2008 edition, ISBN 1-4379-1558-2
11.
Hard disk drive
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The platters are paired with magnetic heads, usually arranged on a moving actuator arm, which read and write data to the platter surfaces. Data is accessed in a manner, meaning that individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order. HDDs are a type of storage, retaining stored data even when powered off. Introduced by IBM in 1956, HDDs became the dominant secondary storage device for computers by the early 1960s. Continuously improved, HDDs have maintained this position into the era of servers. More than 200 companies have produced HDDs historically, though after extensive industry consolidation most current units are manufactured by Seagate, Toshiba, as of 2016, HDD production is growing, although unit shipments and sales revenues are declining. While SSDs have higher cost per bit, SSDs are replacing HDDs where speed, power consumption, small size, the primary characteristics of an HDD are its capacity and performance. Capacity is specified in unit prefixes corresponding to powers of 1000, the two most common form factors for modern HDDs are 3. 5-inch, for desktop computers, and 2. 5-inch, primarily for laptops. HDDs are connected to systems by standard interface cables such as PATA, SATA, Hard disk drives were introduced in 1956, as data storage for an IBM real-time transaction processing computer and were developed for use with general-purpose mainframe and minicomputers. The first IBM drive, the 350 RAMAC in 1956, was approximately the size of two medium-sized refrigerators and stored five million six-bit characters on a stack of 50 disks. In 1962 the IBM350 RAMAC disk storage unit was superseded by the IBM1301 disk storage unit, cylinder-mode read/write operations were supported, and the heads flew about 250 micro-inches above the platter surface. Motion of the head array depended upon a binary system of hydraulic actuators which assured repeatable positioning. The 1301 cabinet was about the size of three home refrigerators placed side by side, storing the equivalent of about 21 million eight-bit bytes, access time was about a quarter of a second. Also in 1962, IBM introduced the model 1311 disk drive, users could buy additional packs and interchange them as needed, much like reels of magnetic tape. Later models of removable pack drives, from IBM and others, became the norm in most computer installations, non-removable HDDs were called fixed disk drives. Some high-performance HDDs were manufactured with one head per track so that no time was lost physically moving the heads to a track, known as fixed-head or head-per-track disk drives they were very expensive and are no longer in production. In 1973, IBM introduced a new type of HDD code-named Winchester and its primary distinguishing feature was that the disk heads were not withdrawn completely from the stack of disk platters when the drive was powered down. Instead, the heads were allowed to land on an area of the disk surface upon spin-down
12.
International Electrotechnical Commission
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The IEC also manages three global conformity assessment systems that certify whether equipment, system or components conform to its International Standards. The first International Electrical Congress took place in 1881 at the International Exposition of Electricity, at that time the International System of Electrical and Magnetic Units was agreed to. The IEC was instrumental in developing and distributing standards for units of measurement, particularly Gauss, Hertz and it also first proposed a system of standards, the Giorgi System, which ultimately became the SI, or Système International d’unités. In 1938, it published a multilingual international vocabulary to unify terminology relating to electrical, electronic and this effort continues, and the International Electrotechnical Vocabulary remains an important work in the electrical and electronic industries. The CISPR – in English, the International Special Committee on Radio Interference – is one of the groups founded by the IEC, originally located in London, the commission moved to its current headquarters in Geneva in 1948. It has regional centres in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and North America, today, the IEC is the worlds leading international organization in its field, and its standards are adopted as national standards by its members. The work is done by some 10,000 electrical and electronics experts from industry, government, academia, test labs, IEC standards have numbers in the range 60000–79999 and their titles take a form such as IEC60417, Graphical symbols for use on equipment. Following the Dresden Agreement with CENELEC the numbers of older IEC standards were converted in 1997 by adding 60000, for example IEC27 became IEC60027. Standards of the 60000 series are also preceded by EN to indicate that the IEC standard is also adopted by CENELEC as a European standard. The IEC cooperates closely with the International Organization for Standardization and the International Telecommunication Union, Standards developed jointly with ISO such as ISO/IEC26300, ISO/IEC27001, and CASCO ISO/IEC17000 series, carry the acronym of both organizations. The use of the ISO/IEC prefix covers publications from ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 - Information Technology, as well as conformity assessment standards developed by ISO CASCO, other standards developed in cooperation between IEC and ISO are assigned numbers in the 80000 series, such as IEC 82045-1. IEC standards are also being adopted by other certifying bodies such as BSI, CSA, UL & ANSI/INCITS, SABS, SAI, SPC/GB, IEC standards adopted by other certifying bodies may have some noted differences from the original IEC standard. The IEC is made up of members, called national committees, national committees are constituted in different ways. Some NCs are public sector only, some are a combination of public and private sector, about 90% of those who prepare IEC standards work in industry
13.
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
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The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is a professional association with its corporate office in New York City and its operations center in Piscataway, New Jersey. It was formed in 1963 from the amalgamation of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, today, it is the worlds largest association of technical professionals with more than 400,000 members in chapters around the world. Its objectives are the educational and technical advancement of electrical and electronic engineering, telecommunications, computer engineering, IEEE stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The association is chartered under this full legal name, IEEEs membership has long been composed of engineers and scientists. For this reason the organization no longer goes by the name, except on legal business documents. The IEEE is dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence and it has about 430,000 members in about 160 countries, slightly less than half of whom reside in the United States. The major interests of the AIEE were wire communications and light, the IRE concerned mostly radio engineering, and was formed from two smaller organizations, the Society of Wireless and Telegraph Engineers and the Wireless Institute. After World War II, the two became increasingly competitive, and in 1961, the leadership of both the IRE and the AIEE resolved to consolidate the two organizations. The two organizations merged as the IEEE on January 1,1963. The IEEE is incorporated under the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law of the state of New York and it was formed in 1963 by the merger of the Institute of Radio Engineers and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. The IEEE serves as a publisher of scientific journals and organizer of conferences, workshops. IEEE develops and participates in activities such as accreditation of electrical engineering programs in institutes of higher learning. The IEEE logo is a design which illustrates the right hand grip rule embedded in Benjamin Franklins kite. IEEE has a dual complementary regional and technical structure – with organizational units based on geography and it manages a separate organizational unit which recommends policies and implements programs specifically intended to benefit the members, the profession and the public in the United States. The IEEE includes 39 technical Societies, organized around specialized technical fields, the IEEE Standards Association is in charge of the standardization activities of the IEEE. The IEEE History Center became an organization to the Engineering. The new ETHW is an effort by various engineering societies as a formal repository of topic articles, oral histories, first-hand histories, Landmarks + Milestones. The IEEE History Center is annexed to Stevens University Hoboken, NJ, in 2016, the IEEE acquired GlobalSpec, adding the provision of engineering data for a profit to its organizational portfolio
14.
European Union
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The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe. It has an area of 4,475,757 km2, the EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states. Within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished, a monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002, and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency. The EU operates through a system of supranational and intergovernmental decision-making. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community, the community and its successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit. While no member state has left the EU or its antecedent organisations, the Maastricht Treaty established the European Union in 1993 and introduced European citizenship. The latest major amendment to the basis of the EU. The EU as a whole is the largest economy in the world, additionally,27 out of 28 EU countries have a very high Human Development Index, according to the United Nations Development Programme. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has developed a role in external relations and defence. The union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G7, because of its global influence, the European Union has been described as an emerging superpower. After World War II, European integration was seen as an antidote to the nationalism which had devastated the continent. 1952 saw the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community, the supporters of the Community included Alcide De Gasperi, Jean Monnet, Robert Schuman, and Paul-Henri Spaak. These men and others are credited as the Founding fathers of the European Union. In 1957, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome and they also signed another pact creating the European Atomic Energy Community for co-operation in developing nuclear energy. Both treaties came into force in 1958, the EEC and Euratom were created separately from the ECSC, although they shared the same courts and the Common Assembly. The EEC was headed by Walter Hallstein and Euratom was headed by Louis Armand, Euratom was to integrate sectors in nuclear energy while the EEC would develop a customs union among members. During the 1960s, tensions began to show, with France seeking to limit supranational power, Jean Rey presided over the first merged Commission. In 1973, the Communities enlarged to include Denmark, Ireland, Norway had negotiated to join at the same time, but Norwegian voters rejected membership in a referendum
15.
NIST
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The National Institute of Standards and Technology is a measurement standards laboratory, and a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. Its mission is to promote innovation and industrial competitiveness, in 1821, John Quincy Adams had declared Weights and measures may be ranked among the necessities of life to every individual of human society. From 1830 until 1901, the role of overseeing weights and measures was carried out by the Office of Standard Weights and Measures, president Theodore Roosevelt appointed Samuel W. Stratton as the first director. The budget for the first year of operation was $40,000, a laboratory site was constructed in Washington, DC, and instruments were acquired from the national physical laboratories of Europe. In addition to weights and measures, the Bureau developed instruments for electrical units, in 1905 a meeting was called that would be the first National Conference on Weights and Measures. Quality standards were developed for products including some types of clothing, automobile brake systems and headlamps, antifreeze, during World War I, the Bureau worked on multiple problems related to war production, even operating its own facility to produce optical glass when European supplies were cut off. Between the wars, Harry Diamond of the Bureau developed a blind approach radio aircraft landing system, in 1948, financed by the Air Force, the Bureau began design and construction of SEAC, the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer. The computer went into operation in May 1950 using a combination of vacuum tubes, about the same time the Standards Western Automatic Computer, was built at the Los Angeles office of the NBS and used for research there. A mobile version, DYSEAC, was built for the Signal Corps in 1954, due to a changing mission, the National Bureau of Standards became the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1988. Following 9/11, NIST conducted the investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. NIST had a budget for fiscal year 2007 of about $843.3 million. NISTs 2009 budget was $992 million, and it also received $610 million as part of the American Recovery, NIST employs about 2,900 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support and administrative personnel. About 1,800 NIST associates complement the staff, in addition, NIST partners with 1,400 manufacturing specialists and staff at nearly 350 affiliated centers around the country. NIST publishes the Handbook 44 that provides the Specifications, tolerances, the Congress of 1866 made use of the metric system in commerce a legally protected activity through the passage of Metric Act of 1866. NIST is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and operates a facility in Boulder, nISTs activities are organized into laboratory programs and extramural programs. Effective October 1,2010, NIST was realigned by reducing the number of NIST laboratory units from ten to six, nISTs Boulder laboratories are best known for NIST‑F1, which houses an atomic clock. NIST‑F1 serves as the source of the official time. NIST also operates a neutron science user facility, the NIST Center for Neutron Research, the NCNR provides scientists access to a variety of neutron scattering instruments, which they use in many research fields
16.
Computer network
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A computer network or data network is a telecommunications network which allows nodes to share resources. In computer networks, networked computing devices exchange data with other using a data link. The connections between nodes are established using either cable media or wireless media, the best-known computer network is the Internet. Network computer devices that originate, route and terminate the data are called network nodes, nodes can include hosts such as personal computers, phones, servers as well as networking hardware. Two such devices can be said to be networked together when one device is able to exchange information with the other device, Computer networks differ in the transmission medium used to carry their signals, communications protocols to organize network traffic, the networks size, topology and organizational intent. In most cases, application-specific communications protocols are layered over other more general communications protocols and this formidable collection of information technology requires skilled network management to keep it all running reliably. The chronology of significant computer-network developments includes, In the late 1950s, in 1960, the commercial airline reservation system semi-automatic business research environment went online with two connected mainframes. Licklider developed a group he called the Intergalactic Computer Network. In 1964, researchers at Dartmouth College developed the Dartmouth Time Sharing System for distributed users of computer systems. The same year, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a group supported by General Electric and Bell Labs used a computer to route. Throughout the 1960s, Leonard Kleinrock, Paul Baran, and Donald Davies independently developed network systems that used packets to transfer information between computers over a network, in 1965, Thomas Marill and Lawrence G. Roberts created the first wide area network. This was an precursor to the ARPANET, of which Roberts became program manager. Also in 1965, Western Electric introduced the first widely used telephone switch that implemented true computer control, in 1972, commercial services using X.25 were deployed, and later used as an underlying infrastructure for expanding TCP/IP networks. In July 1976, Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs published their paper Ethernet, Distributed Packet Switching for Local Computer Networks, in 1979, Robert Metcalfe pursued making Ethernet an open standard. In 1976, John Murphy of Datapoint Corporation created ARCNET, a network first used to share storage devices. In 1995, the transmission speed capacity for Ethernet increased from 10 Mbit/s to 100 Mbit/s, by 1998, Ethernet supported transmission speeds of a Gigabit. Subsequently, higher speeds of up to 100 Gbit/s were added, the ability of Ethernet to scale easily is a contributing factor to its continued use. Providing access to information on shared storage devices is an important feature of many networks, a network allows sharing of files, data, and other types of information giving authorized users the ability to access information stored on other computers on the network
17.
Data storage
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A data storage device is a device for recording information. A storage device may hold information, process information, or both, a device that only holds information is a recording medium. Devices that process information may either access a separate portable recording medium or a permanent component to store, Electronic data storage requires electrical power to store and retrieve that data. Most storage devices that do not require vision and a brain to read data fall into this category, electromagnetic data may be stored in either an analog data or digital data format on a variety of media. Most electronically processed data storage media are considered permanent storage, that is, in contrast, most electronically stored information within most types of semiconductor microcircuits are volatile memory, for it vanishes if power is removed. JISC/NPO Studies on the Preservation of Electronic Materials, A Framework of Data Types and Formats, british Library Research and Innovation Report 50
18.
Flash memory
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Flash memory is electronic non-volatile computer storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. Toshiba developed flash memory from EEPROM in the early 1980s and introduced it to the market in 1984, the two main types of flash memory are named after the NAND and NOR logic gates. The individual flash memory cells exhibit internal characteristics similar to those of the corresponding gates, where EPROMs had to be completely erased before being rewritten, NAND-type flash memory may be written and read in blocks which are generally much smaller than the entire device. NOR-type flash allows a machine word to be written—to an erased location—or read independently. The NAND type operates primarily in memory cards, USB flash drives, solid-state drives, NAND or NOR flash memory is also often used to store configuration data in numerous digital products, a task previously made possible by EEPROM or battery-powered static RAM. One key disadvantage of flash memory is that it can endure a relatively small number of write cycles in a specific block. In addition to being non-volatile, flash memory offers fast read access times, although flash memory is technically a type of EEPROM, the term EEPROM is generally used to refer specifically to non-flash EEPROM which is erasable in small blocks, typically bytes. Because erase cycles are slow, the block sizes used in flash memory erasing give it a significant speed advantage over non-flash EEPROM when writing large amounts of data. As of 2013, flash memory costs much less than byte-programmable EEPROM and had become the dominant memory type wherever a system required a significant amount of non-volatile solid-state storage, Flash memory was invented by Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980. According to Toshiba, the flash was suggested by Masuokas colleague, Shōji Ariizumi. Masuoka and colleagues presented the invention at the IEEE1984 International Electron Devices Meeting held in San Francisco, Intel Corporation saw the massive potential of the invention and introduced the first commercial NOR type flash chip in 1988. NOR-based flash has long erase and write times, but provides full address and data buses, allowing random access to any memory location. This makes it a replacement for older read-only memory chips. Its endurance may be from as little as 100 erase cycles for a flash memory, to a more typical 10,000 or 100,000 erase cycles. NOR-based flash was the basis of early flash-based removable media, CompactFlash was originally based on it, however, the I/O interface of NAND flash does not provide a random-access external address bus. Rather, data must be read on a basis, with typical block sizes of hundreds to thousands of bits. This makes NAND flash unsuitable as a replacement for program ROM. In this regard, NAND flash is similar to other data storage devices, such as hard disks and optical media
19.
DVD
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DVD is a digital optical disc storage format invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. The medium can store any kind of data and is widely used for software. DVDs offer higher capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions. Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD, such discs are a form of DVD-ROM because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD discs can be recorded using a DVD recorder. Rewritable DVDs can be recorded and erased many times, DVDs containing other types of information may be referred to as DVD data discs. The OED also states that in 1995, The companies said the name of the format will simply be DVD. Toshiba had been using the name ‘digital video disk’, but that was switched to ‘digital versatile disk’ after computer companies complained that it left out their applications, Digital versatile disc is the explanation provided in a DVD Forum Primer from 2000 and in the DVD Forums mission statement. There were several formats developed for recording video on optical discs before the DVD, Optical recording technology was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958 and first patented in 1961. A consumer optical disc data format known as LaserDisc was developed in the United States and it used much larger discs than the later formats. CD Video used analog video encoding on optical discs matching the established standard 120 mm size of audio CDs, Video CD became one of the first formats for distributing digitally encoded films in this format, in 1993. In the same year, two new optical disc formats were being developed. By the time of the launches for both formats in January 1995, the MMCD nomenclature had been dropped, and Philips and Sony were referring to their format as Digital Video Disc. Representatives from the SD camp asked IBM for advice on the system to use for their disc. Alan E. Bell, a researcher from IBMs Almaden Research Center, got that request and this group was referred to as the Technical Working Group, or TWG. On August 14,1995, an ad hoc group formed from five computer companies issued a release stating that they would only accept a single format. The TWG voted to both formats unless the two camps agreed on a single, converged standard. They recruited Lou Gerstner, president of IBM, to pressure the executives of the warring factions, as a result, the DVD specification provided a storage capacity of 4.7 GB for a single-layered, single-sided disc and 8.5 GB for a dual-layered, single-sided disc
20.
Hertz
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The hertz is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units and is defined as one cycle per second. It is named for Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the first person to provide proof of the existence of electromagnetic waves. Hertz are commonly expressed in SI multiples kilohertz, megahertz, gigahertz, kilo means thousand, mega meaning million, giga meaning billion and tera for trillion. Some of the units most common uses are in the description of waves and musical tones, particularly those used in radio-. It is also used to describe the speeds at which computers, the hertz is equivalent to cycles per second, i. e. 1/second or s −1. In English, hertz is also used as the plural form, as an SI unit, Hz can be prefixed, commonly used multiples are kHz, MHz, GHz and THz. One hertz simply means one cycle per second,100 Hz means one hundred cycles per second, and so on. The unit may be applied to any periodic event—for example, a clock might be said to tick at 1 Hz, the rate of aperiodic or stochastic events occur is expressed in reciprocal second or inverse second in general or, the specific case of radioactive decay, becquerels. Whereas 1 Hz is 1 cycle per second,1 Bq is 1 aperiodic radionuclide event per second, the conversion between a frequency f measured in hertz and an angular velocity ω measured in radians per second is ω =2 π f and f = ω2 π. This SI unit is named after Heinrich Hertz, as with every International System of Units unit named for a person, the first letter of its symbol is upper case. Note that degree Celsius conforms to this rule because the d is lowercase. — Based on The International System of Units, the hertz is named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, who made important scientific contributions to the study of electromagnetism. The name was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 1930, the term cycles per second was largely replaced by hertz by the 1970s. One hobby magazine, Electronics Illustrated, declared their intention to stick with the traditional kc. Mc. etc. units, sound is a traveling longitudinal wave which is an oscillation of pressure. Humans perceive frequency of waves as pitch. Each musical note corresponds to a frequency which can be measured in hertz. An infants ear is able to perceive frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, the range of ultrasound, infrasound and other physical vibrations such as molecular and atomic vibrations extends from a few femtoHz into the terahertz range and beyond. Electromagnetic radiation is described by its frequency—the number of oscillations of the perpendicular electric and magnetic fields per second—expressed in hertz. Radio frequency radiation is measured in kilohertz, megahertz, or gigahertz
21.
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
22.
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
23.
Computer memory
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In computing, memory refers to the computer hardware devices involved to store information for immediate use in a computer, it is synonymous with the term primary storage. Computer memory operates at a speed, for example random-access memory, as a distinction from storage that provides slow-to-access program and data storage. If needed, contents of the memory can be transferred to secondary storage. An archaic synonym for memory is store, there are two main kinds of semiconductor memory, volatile and non-volatile. Examples of non-volatile memory are flash memory and ROM, PROM, EPROM and EEPROM memory, most semiconductor memory is organized into memory cells or bistable flip-flops, each storing one bit. Flash memory organization includes both one bit per cell and multiple bits per cell. The memory cells are grouped into words of fixed word length, each word can be accessed by a binary address of N bit, making it possible to store 2 raised by N words in the memory. This implies that processor registers normally are not considered as memory, since they only store one word, typical secondary storage devices are hard disk drives and solid-state drives. In the early 1940s, memory technology oftenly permit a capacity of a few bytes, the next significant advance in computer memory came with acoustic delay line memory, developed by J. Presper Eckert in the early 1940s. Delay line memory would be limited to a capacity of up to a few hundred thousand bits to remain efficient, two alternatives to the delay line, the Williams tube and Selectron tube, originated in 1946, both using electron beams in glass tubes as means of storage. Using cathode ray tubes, Fred Williams would invent the Williams tube, the Williams tube would prove more capacious than the Selectron tube and less expensive. The Williams tube would prove to be frustratingly sensitive to environmental disturbances. Efforts began in the late 1940s to find non-volatile memory, jay Forrester, Jan A. Rajchman and An Wang developed magnetic core memory, which allowed for recall of memory after power loss. Magnetic core memory would become the dominant form of memory until the development of transistor-based memory in the late 1960s, developments in technology and economies of scale have made possible so-called Very Large Memory computers. The term memory when used with reference to computers generally refers to Random Access Memory or RAM, volatile memory is computer memory that requires power to maintain the stored information. Most modern semiconductor volatile memory is either static RAM or dynamic RAM, SRAM retains its contents as long as the power is connected and is easy for interfacing, but uses six transistors per bit. SRAM is not worthwhile for desktop system memory, where DRAM dominates, SRAM is commonplace in small embedded systems, which might only need tens of kilobytes or less. Forthcoming volatile memory technologies that aim at replacing or competing with SRAM and DRAM include Z-RAM and A-RAM, non-volatile memory is computer memory that can retain the stored information even when not powered
24.
History of IBM magnetic disk drives
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IBM manufactured magnetic disk storage devices from 1956 to 2003, when it sold its hard disk drive business to Hitachi. Both the hard drive and floppy disk drive were invented by IBM and as such IBMs employees were responsible for many of the innovations in these products. The basic mechanical arrangement of hard drives has not changed since the IBM1301. Disk drive performance and characteristics are measured by the same now as they were in the 1950s. Few products in history have enjoyed such spectacular declines in cost and size along with equally dramatic improvements in capacity and performance. IBM manufactured 8-inch floppy disk drives from 1969 until the mid-1980s, IBM always offered its magnetic disk drives for sale but did not offer them with original equipment manufacturer terms until 1981. By 1996, IBM had stopped making hard disk drives unique to its systems and was offering all its HDDs on an OEM basis, IBM uses many terms to describe its various magnetic disk drives, such as direct access storage device, disk file and diskette file. Here, the current industry standard terms, hard disk drive, the IBM350 disk storage unit, the first disk drive, was announced by IBM as a component of the IBM305 RAMAC computer system on September 13,1956. Simultaneously a very similar product, the IBM355 was announced for the IBM650 RAMAC computer system, RAMAC stood for Random Access Method of Accounting and Control. The first engineering prototype 350 disk storage shipped to Zellerbach in June 1956, however and its design was motivated by the need for real time accounting in business. The 350 stores 5 million 6-bit characters and it has fifty 24-inch diameter disks with 100 recording surfaces. The disks spin at 1200 RPM, Data transfer rate is 8,800 characters per second. An access mechanism moves a pair of heads up and down to select a pair and in. Several improved models were added in the 1950s, the IBM RAMAC305 system with 350 disk storage leased for $3,200 per month. The 350 was officially withdrawn in 1969, patent 3,503,060 from the RAMAC program is generally considered to be the fundamental patent for disk drives. The 350s cabinet is 60 inches long,68 inches high and 29 inches wide, the RAMAC unit weighs about one ton, has to be moved around with forklifts, and was frequently transported via large cargo airplanes. Nonetheless, double capacity versions of the 350 were announced in January 1959, in 1984, the RAMAC350 Disk File was designated an International Historic Landmark by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In 2002, the Magnetic Disk Heritage Center began restoration of an IBM350 RAMAC in collaboration with Santa Clara University
25.
Semi-log plot
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In science and engineering, a semi-log graph or semi-log plot is a way of visualizing data that are related according to an exponential relationship. One axis is plotted on a logarithmic scale, all equations of the form y = λ a γ x form straight lines when plotted semi-logarithmically, since taking logs of both sides gives log a y = γ x + log a λ. This can easily be seen as a line in form with γ as the slope. To facilitate use with logarithmic tables, one usually takes logs to base 10 or e, or sometimes base 2, the term log-lin is used to describe a semi-log plot with a logarithmic scale on the y-axis, and a linear scale on the x-axis. Likewise, a lin-log plot uses a scale on the x-axis. Note that the naming is output-input, the order from. On a semi-log plot the spacing of the scale on the y-axis is proportional to the logarithm of the number and it is equivalent to converting the y values to their log, and plotting the data on lin-lin scales. A log-log plot uses the scale for both axes, and hence is not a semi-log plot. The equation for a line with an ordinate axis logarithmically scaled would be, the equation of a line on a plot where the abscissa axis is scaled logarithmically would be F = m log 10 + b. Time is usually the independent axis, with the logarithm of the number or mass of bacteria or other microbe as the dependent variable and this forms a plot with four distinct phases, as shown below. Nomograph, more complicated graphs Nonlinear regression#Transformation, for converting a nonlinear form to a semi-log form amenable to non-iterative calculation
26.
Western Digital
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Western Digital Corporation is an American computer data storage company and one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers in the world, along with Seagate Technology. Western Digital Corporation has a history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker. Western Digital was founded on April 23,1970, by Alvin B, phillips, a Motorola employee, as General Digital, initially a manufacturer of MOS test equipment. It rapidly became a speciality semiconductor maker, with capital provided by several individual investors. Around July 1971, it adopted its current name and soon introduced its first product, the oil crisis of the mid-1970s and the bankruptcy of its biggest calculator customer, Bowmar Instrument, changed its fortunes, however, and in 1976 Western Digital declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After this, Emerson withdrew their support of the company, WDC introduced several landmark products during this time, including the MCP-1600 multi-chip, microcoded CPU. The MCP-1600 was used to implement DECs LSI-11 system and their own Pascal MicroEngine microcomputer which ran the UCSD p-System Version III, the processor was also used in several single-chip floppy disk drive controller chips, notably the FD1771. However, the WD integrated circuit that arguably drove Westerns forward integration was the 1771 chip, despite a price far higher than average CMOS chips of the time, it was very successful and extremely profitable. That controller, the WD1003, became the basis of the ATA interface, throughout most of the 1980s, the family of controllers based on the WD1003 provided the bulk of WDCs revenues and profits, and for a time generated enormous corporate growth. Much of the mid-to-late 1980s saw an effort by WDC to use the profits from their ATA storage controllers to become a general-purpose OEM hardware supplier for the PC industry, as a result, WDC purchased a number of hardware companies. These included graphics cards, core logic chipsets, SCSI controller chips for disk and tape devices and they did well, but storage-related chips and disk controllers were their biggest money makers. 1988 also brought what would be the biggest change in WDCs history and that year, WDC bought the hard drive production assets of PC hardware maker Tandon, the first products of that union under WDCs own name were the Centaur series of ATA and XT attachment drives. By 1991, things were starting to slow down, as the PC industry moved from ST-506 and ESDI drives to ATA and SCSI and that year saw the rise of WDCs Caviar drives, brand new designs that used the latest in embedded servo and computerized diagnostic systems. Eventually, the sales of the Caviar drives resulted in WDC starting to sell some of its divisions. Paradise was sold to Philips, and since disappeared and its networking and floppy drive controller divisions went to SMC Networks and its SCSI chip business went to Future Domain, which was later bought out by market leader Adaptec. Around 1995, the lead that the Caviar drives had enjoyed was eclipsed by newer offerings from other companies, especially Quantum Corp. Products and ideas of time did not go far. The Portfolio drive was a flop, as was the SDX hard disk to CD-ROM interface, in an attempt to turn the tide in 1998, WDC recruited the help of IBM
27.
DIMM
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A DIMM or dual in-line memory module comprises a series of dynamic random-access memory integrated circuits. These modules are mounted on a circuit board and designed for use in personal computers, workstations. DIMMs began to replace SIMMs as the predominant type of memory module as Intel P5-based Pentium processors began to market share. While the contacts on SIMMs on both sides are redundant, DIMMs have separate electrical contacts on each side of the module, another difference is that standard SIMMs have a 32-bit data path, while standard DIMMs have a 64-bit data path. Since Intels Pentium, many processors have a 64-bit bus width, the processor would then access the two SIMMs in parallel. DIMMs were introduced to eliminate this disadvantage, variants of DIMM slots support DDR, DDR2, DDR3 and DDR4 RAM. 288-pin DIMM, used for DDR4 SDRAM On the bottom edge of 168-pin DIMMs there are two notches, and the location of each notch determines a particular feature of the module. The first notch is the DRAM key position, which represents RFU, registered, the second notch is the voltage key position, which represents 5.0 V,3.3 V, and RFU DIMM types. DDR, DDR2, DDR3 and DDR4 all have different pin counts, as of August,2014, DDR4 SDRAM is a modern emerging type of dynamic random access memory with a high-bandwidth interface, and has been in use since 2013. It is the successor to DDR2 and DDR3. The SPD EEPROM connects to the System Management Bus and may also contain thermal sensors, ECC DIMMs are those that have extra data bits which can be used by the system memory controller to detect and correct errors. There are numerous ECC schemes, but perhaps the most common is Single Error Correct, ECC modules usually carry a multiple of 9 instead of a multiple of 8 chips. Sometimes memory modules are designed with two or more independent sets of DRAM chips connected to the address and data buses. Since all ranks share the same buses, only one rank may be accessed at any given time, all other ranks are deactivated for the duration of the operation by having their corresponding CS signals deactivated. DIMMs are currently being manufactured with up to four ranks per module. Consumer DIMM vendors have begun to distinguish between single and dual ranked DIMMs. After a memory word is fetched, the memory is typically inaccessible for a period of time while the sense amplifiers are charged for access of the next cell. By interleaving the memory, sequential memory accesses can be performed more rapidly because sense amplifiers have 3 cycles of time for recharging
28.
Computer data storage
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Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media used to retain digital data. It is a function and fundamental component of computers. The central processing unit of a computer is what manipulates data by performing computations, in practice, almost all computers use a storage hierarchy, which puts fast but expensive and small storage options close to the CPU and slower but larger and cheaper options farther away. In the Von Neumann architecture, the CPU consists of two parts, The control unit and the arithmetic logic unit. The former controls the flow of data between the CPU and memory, while the latter performs arithmetic and logical operations on data, without a significant amount of memory, a computer would merely be able to perform fixed operations and immediately output the result. It would have to be reconfigured to change its behavior and this is acceptable for devices such as desk calculators, digital signal processors, and other specialized devices. Von Neumann machines differ in having a memory in which they store their operating instructions, most modern computers are von Neumann machines. A modern digital computer represents data using the numeral system. Text, numbers, pictures, audio, and nearly any form of information can be converted into a string of bits, or binary digits. The most common unit of storage is the byte, equal to 8 bits, a piece of information can be handled by any computer or device whose storage space is large enough to accommodate the binary representation of the piece of information, or simply data. For example, the works of Shakespeare, about 1250 pages in print. Data is encoded by assigning a bit pattern to each character, digit, by adding bits to each encoded unit, redundancy allows the computer to both detect errors in coded data and correct them based on mathematical algorithms. A random bit flip is typically corrected upon detection, the cyclic redundancy check method is typically used in communications and storage for error detection. A detected error is then retried, data compression methods allow in many cases to represent a string of bits by a shorter bit string and reconstruct the original string when needed. This utilizes substantially less storage for many types of data at the cost of more computation, analysis of trade-off between storage cost saving and costs of related computations and possible delays in data availability is done before deciding whether to keep certain data compressed or not. For security reasons certain types of data may be encrypted in storage to prevent the possibility of unauthorized information reconstruction from chunks of storage snapshots. Generally, the lower a storage is in the hierarchy, the lesser its bandwidth and this traditional division of storage to primary, secondary, tertiary and off-line storage is also guided by cost per bit. In contemporary usage, memory is usually semiconductor storage read-write random-access memory, typically DRAM or other forms of fast but temporary storage
