8. What is the Internet?

What is this computer phenomenon called the Internet? Imagine a room filled with many spiders, each spinning its own web. The webs are so interconnected that the spiders can travel freely within this maze. So, the Internet is a global connection of many different types of computers and computer networks that are linked together. The Internet enables a person to sit at his computer and exchange information with other computers and computer users in any place in the world.

Some refer to the Internet as the information superhighway. The Internet allows information to flow through many different interconnected computer networks. Each network that is reached contains information that assists in connecting to the adjacent network. The final destination may be in a different city or country.

Each network can “speak” with its neighbor network by means of a common set of rules created by the Internet designers. The number of connected computers is doubling each year.

It offers a rapidly growing collection of information, with topics ranging from medicine to science and technology. It features exhaustive material on the arts as well as research material for students and coverage of recreation, entertainment, sports, shopping and employment opportunities. The Internet provides access to almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps and any other information.

A common resource provided by the Internet is a worldwide system for sending end receiving electronic mail, known as E-mail. E-mail represents a large portion of all Internet traffic and is for many the only Internet resource they use.

Unlike the regular mail, E-mail often reaches its destination, even on other continents, in minutes or less unless some part of the network is heavily congested or temporarily out of order. The speed of E-mail and the ease with which it can be sent even to multiple recipients all over the world make it a popular form of communication. (18)

9. Microprocessors: a Brain to the Hardware

Processor is a general term for any device capable of carrying out operations of data. The central processing unit of a computer handles functions such as process/product monitor, analysis and control.

By taking advantage of the knowledge and concepts gained in mainframe and minicomputer application, better and more sophisticated microprocessors began to emerge. Microprocessors had larger and denser chips, higher resolution, higher speed specially designed RAMs and ROMs, specially designed I/O and peripheral interface circuits, on-chips clock and timing circuits, more extensive and more powerful instruction sets and lower power dissipation. Supercomputers have to operate like brain: all the computations proceed concurrently.

The very first microprocessors were fabricated using PMOS technology. Later, improved technology permitted microprocessors to be constructed using n-type MOS and these microprocessors were almost as fast as normal minicomputers with speeds of three or four microseconds per instruction. Some microprocessors are now made using CMOS; the speed and logic density are inferior to n-type MOS but the process does have some significant advantages.

Nowadays, the CPU must perform a number of functions simultaneously, for example, fuel-mixture calculations and ignition advance control in a car. Software developments cycles must be short, all the computation proceeds concurrent.

Today, there is a trend towards distributing more processing capability throughout a computer system, with various areas. At present, scientists announced dramatic new breakthroughs in molecular electronics: they fabricated the circuits using an advanced system of manufacturing called nano-imprint lithography. Capacity and performance could be extended enormously by layering molecular-switch devices on conventional silicon.

Nowadays, many large mainframes may have more than one CPU; they may include even thousands of processors. Machines with new architecture possess highly parallel structures but each of these executes instruction streams that are unrelated.

Distributing microprocessing is a technique in which the main microprocessor of the PC directs other microprocessors throughout the PC system to perform specific functions for it and report their status.

Remote I/O modules use the resident microprocessors to shorten the effective scan time. However, with independent intelligence in the I/O, if something happens to the PC, the I/O module might already have acted on misinformation.

The ease or difficulty with which each element can communicate with another will affect how much the data are manipulated before they are transmitted through the network. The major obstacle to designing an effective distributed-processing system is the difficulty involved in writing the system’s software, which must enable the various elements of network to operate and interact efficiently.

Programmability – that flexible feature not found in random-logic design – can be obtained in microprocessors on one of the two levels. The micro-instructions may be used to obtain a macro- or machine-language instruction set, which is then used to write control programs for microprocessor. Microprocessors that are not microprogrammable contain fixed, general-purpose instruction sets that are often adequate for most applications.

We can look forward to even more sophisticated system functions including digital to analog conversion and vice versa, more arithmetic capability such as matrix inversion and massive amounts of memory. Microsystems pervade the products of cybernetics, for example, mobile phones, supercomputers, high-speed communication’s system, super-industrial controls and logical systems. Today microprocessors are sure to be brains of virtually all electronic devices. (26)