Lecture 5
Chapter 4: Application Software: Programs That Let You Work and Play
After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions:
- What’s the difference between application software and system software? (p. 162)
- What kinds of applications are included in productivity software I might use at home? (pp. 162–175)
- What are the different types of multimedia software? (pp. 175–178)
- What are the different types of entertainment software? (pp. 178–180)
- What is reference software? (p. 181)
- What are the different types of drawing software? (p. 182)
- What kinds of software do small and large businesses use? (pp. 182–187)
- Where can I go for help when I have a problem with my software? (pp. 187–188)
- How can I purchase software or get it for free? (pp. 188–191)
- How do I install, uninstall, and open software? (p. 192–195)
Chapter 9: Computer System Hardware
After reading this chapter, you should be able to understand this (Foxtrot cartoon) [There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don’t.] and answer the following questions:
- What is a switch, and how does it work in a computer?
- What is the binary number system, and what role does it play in a computer system?
- What is inside the CPU, and how do these components operate?
- How does a CPU process data and instructions?
- What is cache memory?
- What types of RAM are there?
- What is a bus, and how does it function in a computer system?
- How do manufacturers make CPUs so that they run faster?
Discussion Questions
Chapter 4
- The cost of new software applications can be prohibitively high. You need to do a project for school that requires the use of a software application you don't own, but your roommate has a copy that her dad gave her from his work. She is letting you install it on your machine.
- Is it okay for you to borrow this software?
- Would it be okay if you uninstalled the application after you were finished using it?
- Would it be okay if the software was on the school's network and you could copy it from there?
- Currently, there is no true system to check for illegal installations of software programs. What kind of program or system do you think could be developed to do this type of checking? Who would pay to develop, run, and maintain the program: the developers or the software users?
- Less than a decade ago, home users had no media files on their computer systems. Today, many users have a library of music, a collection of digitized movies, personal photo collections, and even a large set of recorded television shows. Examine three different software packages on the market today for managing these materials. What features do they need to make the PC the primary entertainment device for a home? What would make users move their PC from the office into the living room?
- The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus, who created the Grameen Bank. This bank makes very small loans to the poor of Bangladesh, without requiring collateral. Often these loans are less than $200 but allow women to begin small businesses and climb out of poverty. How has software made the Grameen bank productive and able to serve almost 7 million borrowers? What other ways could software make a difference to the struggling peoples of the world?
Chapter 9
- Consider the current limitations of the design of memory, how it is organized, and how a CPU operates. Think radically-what extreme ideas can you propose for the future of processor design? What do you think the limit of clock speed for a processor will be? How could a CPU communicate more quickly with memory? What could future cache designs look like?
- The four stages of the CPU processing cycle are fetch, decode, execute, and store. Think of some real-world tasks you perform that could be described the same way. For each example, describe how it would be changed if it were pipelined. What additional resources would the pipelined task require?
- Binary events, things that can be in one of only two positions, happen around you all the time. A common example is a light switch that is toggled on or off. How about a coin? It must always be either heads up or heads down. What other events or objects behave in a binary style?