CATEGORIES OF COMPUTERS ACCORDING TO SIZE AND CAPABILITIES

Super computer - A supercomputer is a computer with a high-level computational capacity compared to a general-purpose computer. Performance of a supercomputer is measured in floating point operations per second instead of million instructions per second (MIPS). As of 2015, there are supercomputers which can perform up to quadrillions of floating point operations per second. Supercomputers were introduced in the 1960s by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation.

Super Computer

Mainframe Computer - Mainframe computers are computers used primarily by large organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning and transaction processing. The term originally referred to the large cabinets called "main frames" that housed the central processing unit and main memory of early computers. Later, the term was used to distinguish high-end commercial machines from less powerful units. Most large-scale computer system architectures were established in the 1960s, but continue to evolve.

Minicomputer -A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller computers that developed in the mid-1960s. A minicomputer as a machinewith an input-output device such as a tele printer and at least four thousand words of memory, that is capable of running programs in a higher level language. Minis were designed for control, instrumentation, human interaction, and communication switching as distinct from calculation and record keeping.

Workstation - A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term workstation has also been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe computer terminal to a PC connected to a network, but the most common form refers to the group of hardware offered by several current and defunct companies. Workstations were optimized for the visualization and manipulation of different types of complex
Personal Computer - A personal computer is a general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities and original sale price make it useful for individuals, and is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator.Software applications for most personal computers include, but are not limited to, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, web browsers and e-mail clients, digital media playback, games and many personal productivity and special-purpose software applications. A personal computer may be a desktop computer or a laptop, netbook, tablet or a handheld PC

CATEGORIES OF SOFTWARE

System Software - is computer software designed to operate and control the computer hardware and to provide a platform for running application software. System software can be separated into two different categories, operating systems and utility software.The operating system (prominent examples being z/OS, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux), allows the parts of a computer to work together by performing tasks like transferring data between memory and disks or rendering output onto a display device. It also provides a platform to run high-level system software and application software. Utility software is system software designed to help analyze, configure, optimize or maintain a computer. Utility software, along with operating system software, is a type of system software used to support the computer infrastructure, distinguishing it from application software which is aimed at directly performing tasks that benefit ordinary users.

System Software

Application Software - is a computer program designed to perform a group of coordinated functions, tasks, or activities for the benefit of the user. Examples of an application include a word processor, a spreadsheet, an accounting application, a media player, an aeronautical flight simulator, a console game or a photo editor.

MULTIMEDIA

Multimedia refers to content that uses a combination of different content forms. This contrasts with media that use only rudimentary computer displays such as text-only or traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, or interactive content forms. Multimedia can be recorded and played, displayed, dynamic, interacted with or accessed by information content processing devices, such as computerized and electronic devices, but can also be part of a live performance. Multimedia helps enhance the learning process in schools all over the world.

Types of Multimedia

Text - In information technology, text is a human-readable sequence of characters and the words they form that can be encoded into computer-readable formats.
Graphics - Graphics are visual presentations on a surface, such as a computer screen. Examples are photographs, drawing, graphics designs, maps, engineering drawings, or other images. Graphics often combines text and illustration.
Audio - Audio is sound within the acoustic range available to humans. In computers, audio is the sound system that comes with or can be added to a computer. An audio card contains a special built-in processor and memory for processing audio files and sending them to speakers in the computer. Sound is a sequence of naturally analog signals that are converted to digital signals by the audio card, using a microchip called an analog-to-digital converter.
Video �Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Visual multimedia source that combines a sequence of images to form a moving picture.
Animation - the technique of photographing successive drawings or positions of puppets or models to create an illusion of movement when the film is shown as a sequence.

SOFTWARE DEPLOYMENT

Software deployment is all of the activities that make a software system available for use. The general deployment process consists of several interrelated activities with possible transitions between them. These activities can occur at the producer side or at the consumer side or both.