Week 2 Notes

Wikipedia on Computer Hardware
Having installed hard drives, disc drives, cd burners, and video cards in the family's computers, it was nice to see names put to all of the devices I've been playing with over the years. The definitions of Hardware as "rarely changing" and Software "working within the hardware" was helpful in sorting out all of the definitions floating around my head.
This is an article that I will keep tagged for reference purposes.

Moore's Law article and video
Gordon Moore was obviously a visionary. His law declared that the number of transistors produced at optimal minimum cost doubles every two years, or at an exponential rate. As a result we've gone from 60 transistors to a billion transistors on a chip. Almost every measure of the capabilities of digital electronics is linked to Moore's Law.
Moore's Law has come to describe the driving force of of technological and social changes of the 20Th & 21st centuries. As more transistors fit onto a chip, the cost per transistor has gone down to the consumers. As cost of the product to the consumer has fallen, the cost to producers to fulfill Moore's law rises. This has been referred to as Moore's second law.
Moore's Law is predicted to continue for several chip generations. (about 10 years) eventually the size of the transistor will reach it's limits at the atom size. Some feel that with the event of new materials, Moore's law could continue on even longer.
An interesting point was made: The exponential improvement of hardware has not bee equalled by the exponential improvement of software.

Computer History Museum
This is a very interesting web site that I spent quite a long time in. I thought the display of transistors to visually explain Moore's Law was very good. I also like seeing all of the historical pictures of early computers and reading about the developments that each offered.