1. COMPSCI 111 / 111G An introduction to practical computing
Hardware

2. Teaching Staff y Prof Andre Nies Lectures 1 - 10
Office: Computer Science Building (Bldg 303S) Room 565
Office hours: Tue Th 2pm
Stefan Wender Lectures
Office: Computer Science Building (Bldg 303S) Room 587
Office Hours: Open door policy (or for appointment) y
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3. Teaching Staff Damir Azhar Lectures 16 - 23
Office: Computer Science Building (Bldg 303S) Room 596
Office Hours: Open door policy (or for appointment)
Prof Pat Langley Lectures 24 – 30
Office Hours: Tuesday 11am, Thursday 11am, Friday 2pm
Ann Cameron (Lab Tutor / Course Coordinator)
Office: Computer Science Building (Bldg 303S) Room 594
Open door policy (or for appointment)
See Ann if there are any problems
COMPSCI 111 / 111G

4. Computer Science Support Group
See Ann Cameron Angela Chang Adriana Ferraro Paul Denny Radu Nicolescu Andrew Luxton-Reilly Patricia Rood
COMPSCI 111 / 111G

5. Contents Introduction Internet
Hardware, Digital Information, Software
Internet
WWW, ,
Forums, Blog, Wiki
Social networking, filesharing
Social issues and risks
Home / Office Applications and Publication Tools
Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Databases
HTML, PowerPoint, LaTeX
Programming
Python
Special Topics (1 lecture each)
History, Computer Graphics, Artificial Intelligence,
Python easy to use
Course has Broad coverage. Wikipedia ok as source
Labs: Practical skills. Get more efficient as computer usersby knowing how they work
Recurremt theme: Technology changes rapidly
I young: WWW no, laptop no, PC no
Google, Wikipedia since about 2001
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6. Course Requirements Required reading Assessment
Course book (selected topics) and Lab manual are required (available from University Book Shop)
Online resources (slides, web links) on course website:
Assessment
Labs 20% Practical
Test (29 August, 6:30pm) 20% Theory
Exam 60% Theory
Must pass both practical and theory (≥50% each).
Lab attendance is compulsory.
Course book: things more formally specified, more detail
Lab manual. Need THIS semester
Lectures recorded, on Cecil
Need to get 10% in PRACTICAL.
Don’ tmiss labs, 3 hours each
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7. Laboratories Overview Assessment Location
Designed to provide practical experience
Prepare for labs by reading the lab manual, course notes and/or online sources
Friendly atmosphere. Talk to other students.
Assessment
Compulsory three hour lab each week (start in week 2)
9 labs, worth 20% of final grade
10% of each lab for attendance (be there on time at the beginning)
Must hand in your lab assignment before the start of the following lab
Location
First Floor Teaching Laboratory (FTL), Room 175, Building 303
Bring your student ID and a USB stick (flash drive) to labs. A cheap one is fine.
Remember: you need ≥50% of practical part to pass the course.
After 3 hour lab, have one week to prepare lab report, hand it at next lab. Casual /friendly
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8. Study Time management Internet resources Getting started
10 hours per course per week.
3 hours lectures
3 hour lab
4 hours reading, lab report
Internet resources
Getting started
Get course reference book and 2014 S2 lab manual from UBS
Log into a computer, read your
(when ing staff, use your university account)
Avg student gets avg grade by 10 h. Top student who wants C, spend LESS. Fragile wanting A spend MORE
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9. Who wants to be class representative?
Easy job, 2 meetings. Class reps come together in a meeting, discuss problems with staff. Pizza
Sit on dept committee
Good for CV
Elect next time
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10. Hardware
Argonne supercomputer
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11. Server Farm COMPSCI 111 / 111G Server farms really big,
Huge building with racks and racks and racks of hard drives.
Consume so much power they are next to power stations.
US just builsd power stations to get power to server farms.
Today talk abt personal computers
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12. Design of a Personal Computer
Communication
Processing
Input
Design hasn’t changed much since 70s
Any hardware classified into one of the 5 categories
Processing – Computer can perform arithmetic and logical operations.
Storage: long term , non volatile (can switch of computer)
From the human to computer – input keyboard – voice activation
From computer to human- output (screen)
BOTH: touchscreen
Communication: with other computers
Output
Storage
COMPSCI 111 / 111G

13. Introduction to Hardware
Computer Hardware
“Those parts of the system that you can hit with a hammer (not advised) are called hardware”
Modular
modular Standardized ports and plug, so can replace parts
Mac : all in one. Beautiful but can’t replace pieces. Similar with laptop
YS: Newer monitors usually have LCD (liquid crystal display) or LED (light-emitting diode) displays. These can be made very thin, and they are often called flat panel displays.
Older monitors used to use CRT (cathode ray tube) displays. CRT monitors are much bigger and heavier, and they take up more desk space.
Most monitors have control buttons that allow you to change your monitor's display settings
LED displays are actually LCD displays that are backlit with light-emitting diodes. This allows for greater contrast than a traditional LCD display.
Monitor
Keyboard
Mouse
System Unit
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14. Inside the System Unit Modular Components Power Supply CD Drives
Cooling Fans
CPU
Motherboard
Hard Drives
Expansion Cards
Have you ever looked inside a computer case before, or seen pictures of the inside of one? The small parts may look complicated, but the inside of a computer case really isn't all that mysterious.
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15. Power Supply Converts AC to lower DC voltage COMPSCI 111 / 111G
The power supply unit in a computer converts the power from the wall outle (AC) t to the type of power needed by the computer (DC). It sends power through the cables to the motherboard and other components.
Prone to failure
Expensive provdies more stable system
If you decide to open the computer case and take a look, make sure to unplug the computer first. Before touching the inside of the computer, you should touch a grounded metal object (or a metal part of the computer casing) to discharge any static buildup. Static electricity can be transmitted through the computer circuits and ruin them.
COMPSCI 111 / 111G

16. *Not really cards but graphics and IO chips
Inside a Laptop
Cooling fans CPU Motherboard Flash drive Expansion cards* RAM Power Supply (batteries)
*Not really cards but graphics and IO chips
COMPSCI 111 / 111G

17. Hitting MacBook with hammer
All components are there, even communic (WIFI)
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18. Motherboard Main circuit board for the computer
Everything else connects to the motherboard
Design hasn’t changed much in 20 yrs
Main function is to provides space to plug other things in: CPU, RAM, Hard drive
It's a thin plate that holds the CPU, memory, connectors for the hard drive and optical drives, expansion cards to control the video and audio, as well as connections to your computer's ports (such as the USB ports).
The motherboard connects directly or indirectly to every part of the computer.
Sisterboard: e.g. memory
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19. Processor CPU (Central Processing Unit) Speed Cooling "Brain"
Follows instructions
Speed
Computation speed often measured in operations per second (OPS)
Clock speed (Hz) is the speed with which electrical signals pass through the CPU
The faster the better, except ...
Cooling
... heat is one of the major limitations
The faster the CPU the hotter it gets
CPU must be kept cool
Cooling fan, Heat sink, Water cooled
Brain
Lots of pins, mostly housing, the actual CPU is like a fingernail
Perfomance: Million of OPS
Add two numbers from registers, test, shift numbers
Some architectures are more complex than others. Even if lower OPS, could be faster.
Store gives info of clock speed. Number of cycles/second
Today most > 1GHz. A few smaller
Heat up by sending all that electricity “PUFF”
Today mostly temperature sensor to shut them down if they run too hot.
Water cooled better
Supercomputers: liquid N
Limitation: getting rid of heat
Why so small? Short Distances help. If speed is 1 GHz, How far does light move in one cycle?
The Central Processing Unit (CPU), also called a processor, is located inside the computer case on the motherboard.
It is sometimes called the brain of the computer, and its job is to carry out commands. Whenever you press a key, click the mouse, or start an application, you're sending instructions to the CPU.
The CPU is generally a 2-inch ceramic square with a silicon chip located inside. The chip is usually about the size of a thumbnail. The CPU fits into the motherboard's CPU socket, which is covered by the heat sink, an object that absorbs heat from the CPU.
A processor's speed is measured in megahertz (MHz), or millions of instructions per second, and gigahertz (GHz), or billions of instructions per second. A faster processor can execute instructions more quickly. However, the actual speed of the computer depends on the speed of many different components—not just the processor.
CPU that use less electricity and less hot -- mobile devices
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20. Gordon E. Moore (co-founder of Intel)
Moore’s Law (1965)
The number of transistors on a single integrated circuit doubles approximately every 18 months, while the price remains the same. (Originally Moore said “every 2 years”.)
Gordon E. Moore (co-founder of Intel)
In 3 Years
Potentially 4 times the work in the same time
In 15 years
1,000 times as powerful
In 30 years
1,000,000 times as powerful
Gordon Moore, Fairchild semiconductors, first silicon chip (circuitry on wafer of silicon)
Intel co founder, created very first CPU
Number of transistors is good measure of processing power.
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21. Transistors on Chip under electron microscope
Other sizes: Virus 20 – 300 nm, bacterium 1-10 micrometer
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22. Clock Speed of CPUs Speed CPU 1 MHz 6502 (Apple II 1977)
4 MHz (IBM XT 1981)
16 MHz (IBM AT)
MHz (1989)
MHz Intel Pentium / AMD K5 (1993)
MHz Intel Pentium MMX
MHz Intel Pentium II / AMD K6
400MHz - 1 GHz Intel Pentium III / AMD Athlon
1 – 3.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 / AMD Athlon XP(2000)
GHz Intel Core i7 (2010)
GHz IBM POWER7+
AL Retry things they have tried in 70s where
Reaching physical limits
Other options quantyum computing
Light carries higher information
YK ARM - Embedded devices mobile, gps, and dvd.
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23. Other criteria for quality
Power efficiency and heat are just as important as processor speed.
Processors have several cores now. Commonly from 2 to 8.
Examples of other processors: ARM, a family of instruction set architectures for computer processors based on reduced instruction set computing (RISC). Used in mobile devices
Things are more complicated now (the GHz haven’t changed in 10 years).
Several cores (2-8)
Quadcore
Need new approach to programming for these processors so can use multiple cores
COMPSCI 111 / 111G