Computer Systems

A computer system at its most basic is something that takes in an input, processes it and then outputs it. An example of this simplicity is a calculator. You input a number, then a mathematical sign, such as a +, input another number and then hit the equals sign. The calculator takes these three inputs processes them and then outputs them.      

Embedded System

An embedded system is a system that is part of a larger system or machine. For example a washing machine or microwave but not a PC or IPad. This is because the system in the IPad or PC is the machine where as an embedded system is part of a machine. An example of an embedded system in a microwave could be you putting it on defrost for 15s. You input 15s and defrost and the embedded system then tells the microwave generator to generate a certain amount of microwaves for 15s.

Reliability

Reliability in computer systems is extremely important. Being reliable is the system doing the exact thing that it is meant to do. Such as in an airplane the altitude sensor would be reliable if it measured an altitude of 15000 feet while it is at 15000 feet. It is very dangerous if a computer system is not reliable. Imagine if the sensors on a roller coaster registered the roller coaster as stopped and safe to get out when you were in the middle of a loop. It would then command the seats to open dropping you off. Computer systems are kept reliable by lots of testing, frequent maintenance and testing.
Here is a paper I wrote on a recent computer systems failure.

There are many standards for computer systems. For external data transfer the most common way of transferring data is via USB, when using USB2 an older version but much more common version of USB data speeds are slow but fine for small files. Whereas USB3, which is slowly becoming more common place you can reach much faster speeds, that come close to SATA6. A rarer way of transferring external data is via Firewire which is only commonplace on mac and is on nearly no Windows PC's. A very rare method of external data transfer is ESATA which is as fast as SATA6.

For internal data transfer (inside the PC) the most common method is SATA either SATA3 or SATA6 these are fast ways of transferring data and are on nearly every hard drive. An older method is via IDE which was common place before it was replaced by SATA.

For transfer of video (from a pc to monitor) there is many ways avliable. For HD video one of the best standards is HDMI, which is common place on most game consoles, DVD/Blu ray players and graphics cards. An older standard is VGA but this is only useful for less than HD content. Display port is another standard that is nearly only seen on pcs. Display port is mostly used for multi-monitor setups.

There is also standards for pc parts. The most common standard for add in cards(video cards, extra USB ports and LAN cards) is PCIE. PCIE is very fast and is used where things need to be moved in between 2 things very fast. 





 Software Standards

Software standards are mostly standards for different file types that are used. The way software filetypes become standards vary with JPEG (.jpg), one of the most common photo file standards, was created by a group of experts who decided that their file type was the best. Other file types become standards due to common use such as HTML and PDF. Nobody said that these file types should be standards they just became standard due to so many people using them. One way that a file types have become standard is a combination of both. Microsoft decided that all word files created would be created as a .doc because Microsoft word became the most common way to create word documents .doc became the standard.