English Essay - Computers

Today I had to do an English essay about any topic I wished, I chose computers. Since this is my blog, I decided I would post it here. If you were the teacher, what would you grade me? 

General topic: computers

 

Limited subject: computer companies, connections, and examples

List of ideas:

• Fire wire
• USB
• Monitors
• Software
• Keyboards
• Mice
• Major companies
• Largest Supercomputer in the world

Statement of purpose (thesis):

Computers are a very important part of our daily lives. I plan to show some interesting facts about computers and give you some neat examples.

Outline: 

1. Introduction
1. The largest monitor
2. The largest computer
2. Major computer companies
1. IBM
2. Hewlett Packard
3. Verizon
4. Dell
5. Microsoft
6. Intel
7. Motorola
8. Sprint
9. Canon
10. Ingram Micro
3. Computer connections
1. VGA
2. DVI
3. HDMI
4. Computer transfer protocols
1. SCSI
2. Firewire
3. USB
5. Summary
1. How powerful compared to the first computers
2. What we might see in the future

 Computers  

The largest and highest resolution “monitor” in the world has 55 high-resolution displays hooked up all-together to make screen with up to 220 million pixels in resolution. 

The largest supercomputer in the world in named BlueGene/L, and as I am writing this, it has 73728 GB of memory. It was made by IBM—one of the major computer companies—and it is used to make possible science simulation of unprecedented detail for NNSA’s tri-lab Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program.

   Major computer companies in the world are—from rank 1-10—IBM, Hewlett Packard, Verizon, Dell, Microsoft, Intel, Motorola, Sprint, Canon, Ingram Micro. My family owns products from all of these companies except Ingram Micro, and Sprint!

 

There are many types of connections and ways to hook up different devices. Monitors use connections named VGA, DVI, and HDMI. Currently, HDMI has the highest quality; to my knowledge, there really is no difference in quality, in most cases, between VGA and DVI. The connection names are actually acronyms for longer names. VGA means Video Graphics Array, DVI means Digital Video Interface, and HDMI means High Definition Multimedia Interface.

 Most devices use USB, Firewire, or SCSI connections, USB being the more used.  The only difference with USB connections and Firewire connections is USB connections have to go through a “middle man”, or to keep this in perspective, a translator. Firewire connections are often times much faster because of this. Firewire connections use no “middle man” in the process of transferring data—a straight connection to each device, making a faster connection. Like the monitor connections, the connection names are acronyms for longer names. USB means Universal Serial Bus, and SCSI means Small Computer System Interface.

 Now let’s consider how powerful the computers are today compared to computers years ago. When computers were first being created, the prices were so high, that the average consumer could not begin to think about purchasing them. For instance, in 1956 IBM sold a 5 Megabyte drive for $50,000! The price rapidly decreased, and in 2002, the average cost of each Gigabyte was only $1.15! The cost is most likely even lower now. In the future, I think that most hard drives will be in flash format, and there will be even smaller, cheaper, more compact computers than there are today. We might even see entire touch-screen monitors and interfaces, and maybe even monitors or keyboards that roll up.