Physical environments 1-Types of physical computer Systems

Question 1

Characteristics of PC (personal computers)

Answer 1

A PC is designed for general use by an individual for tasks like word processing, web browsing, playing video games, and more.

Typically, PCs come in two main form factors: desktop and laptop.
Desktops are larger machines that are designed to stay in one place, while laptops are smaller and more portable.

Question 2

Features of PC (personal computers)

Answer 2

One of the features of PCs is that they typically come with a variety of input/output ports that allow you to connect them to other devices.

For example, most PCs have multiple USB ports. They also typically have an HDMI port so you can connect them to a TV or monitor for gaming or watching movies.

Another feature of personal computers is that they can be customised & upgraded by replacing various hardware components, such as the CPU, RAM, storage device or graphics card.

Question 3

Characteristics of mobile devices

Answer 3

Mobile devices are small, portable computers that can be carried around with you. This includes smartphones and tablets.

Mobile devices typically have much smaller screens than PCs—usually around 5 inches for smartphones and 7-10 inches for tablets-and they don’t have as many input/output ports.

Question 4

Features of mobile devices

Answer 4

*designed to be used with your fingers (or stylus)

*built-in sensors like accelerometers and gyroscopes that allow them to detect movement; this is how your phone knows to rotate the screen when you turn it sideways

*most have built-in cellular radios that allow you to connect to the internet even when there is no Wi-Fi available

Question 5

Characteristics of servers

Answer 5

*powerful computers that store large amounts of data and handle heavy computational loads

*designed to provide centralised computing services to multiple users or clients.

*Servers typically come in racks (a stack of server units) and are often housed in data centres where they can be monitored and maintained by IT professionals

Question 6

Features of servers

Answer 6

*often have redundant components (like power supplies) so they keep running even if one component fails. These are usually more powerful hardware and have more extensive storage capacity than PCs.

*usually run server software which allows them to provide services (like file storage or email) to other computers on a network
^This software is often custom-built for the specific needs of the organisation that operates the server

Question 7

Characteristics of smart/ internet enabled devices

Answer 7

*broad category of devices that are typically connected to the internet and have some degree of intelligence or automation
*Some examples of smart devices include thermostats, door locks, light bulbs, cars, appliances, and more

Question 8

Features of smart/internet enabled devices

Answer 8

*often controlled by voice commands of smartphone apps e.g. you might use an app on your smartphone to control the temperature settings on your smart thermostat

*usually communicate over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, some newer come with cellular radios so they can stay connected even if there’s no Wi-Fi available

*have limited processing power and storage but are designed to operate continuously and autonomously

*they typically use sensors, machine learning algorithms and cloud processing to provide personalised and automated experiences. For example, your smart thermostat will use a sensor to detect the temp of room, this can be sent to cloud servers for machine learning algorithms to learn from and provide responses (such as turning on the heating)