UNIT 3

TYPES OF COMPUTERS

In this lesson students will:

- Understand what different types of computers are.
- Get familiar with the following terms:
Analog Computers Personal digital assistants
Digital Computers Media centers
Hybrid Computers Netbooks
Mainframe Computers Handheld computers
Minicomputers Wearable Computers
Microcomputers Tablet Computer
Supercomputers Workstation
Servers Embedded system
Personal computers Chromebook
Desktops Clipboard computer
Stylus Node
Laptops Datacenter

- Develop language skills on the topic of Types of Computers.

PART A: ICT BASICS

Task 1. Look at the diagram of computer classification. Work in pair: try to match the
kinds of computers with their definition.
COMPUTER

By type By size By purpose

Micro
Analog General
Workstation(*) purpose
Digital Mini
Mainframe Special
Hybrid purpose
Super
(*)
In some classifications Workstation is considered to be one kind of Micro
 Analog Computer A small computer which are specifically designed for personal and
office use. They are usually inexpensive and have minimum storing
and processing speed. Some common examples are laptop or
desktop.
Digital Computer Certain computers that are designed specifically to monitor and solve
the needs or request of other programs or computer.
Hybrid Computer More powerful than a microcomputer (with faster memory, better-
operating speeds and larger storage capacities). They are generally
used as a server and are capable of supporting up to 200 users.
Micro Computer Any computer-based devices that accept different applications. They
can be mainframes, servers, laptop and desktop computers, as well as
smartphones and tablets.
Mini Computer A computer which has the features of analogue, as well as the digital
machine. The type of computer is generally noticed in the geological
departments.
Mainframe A certain type of computer that accepts data and processes it in the
Computers form of numbers. In such a computer all the characters are converted
into binary code.
Super computers A computer system which performs a dedicated function. One known
as an Embedded System function within a larger system such as in
cars, planes, machine tools, cameras, etc. Another named Information
Appliance or Media Center is a dedicated entertainment device for
playing video or music …
Servers Like desktop terminals, but these are more powerful than
microcomputers and are typically networked. This kind of computer
usually serves a single user only.
General purpose A kind of computer in which numerical data are represented by
computer physical variables which can be measured, for example, electrical
voltage, for example a thermometer.
Special purpose The most powerful computers which are used mainly for the purpose
computer of difficult problem-solving requirements, for example in times of
research, weather forecasting and Weapon designing and much more.
Workstations Those types of computers have very high memory and processing
speed. They are used as a server since they can support thousands of
users.

Task 2. Microcomputers (Personal computers) can be divided into many different kinds.
a. Look at the pictures. Can you tell what their differences are?
b. What type of computer do these descriptions refer to?
• A hand-held computer which can be used as a telephone, a web explorer and personal
organizer.
• A typical computer found in many businesses and popular for home use.
• A large computer used for intensive data processing and often linked to many terminals.
• A small computer that fits into an item of clothing.
• A portable computer that can be closed up like a briefcase, but it can be as powerful as a
desktop PC.
• A full-function PC, though it only weighs less than a kg – you can go to a meeting and
write your notes on it, like a paper notepad; its screen can be changed from portrait to
landscape.

PART B: LANGUAGE SKILLS

Task 3. Listen to the following extract from a radio talk show called Computerworks in
which the host talks with Sandra Cavanah, a writer with a computer magazine. As you
listen, fill in the missing information about the various portable computers.

Portable
Power: runs on (1)…………………………………..
Weight: between 15 and (2)………….. pounds
Screen size: about ten inches diagonally
Input device: keyboard
 (3)……………………………….
Power: runs on rechargeable (4)………………………………..
Weight: generally between 8 and 15 pounds
Screen size: about (5)………………………. diagonally
Input device: keyboard

Notebook
Power: batteries
Weight: as little as (6)…………………….. pounds
Screen size: as small as (7)…………………….. inches
Input device: keyboard

Clipboard
Power: (8)……………………………….. batteries
Weight: between (9)…………………….. and 6 pounds
Screen size: similar to notebook and laptop
Input device: (10) ……………………………………..

(11)……………………………..
Power: can operate on (12)……………………….. batteries
Weight: less than (13) ……………………….
Screen size: very small
Input device: keys

Task 4. Now discuss the following question: What is the best type of computer for students
to learn English?

Task 5. Reading: Read the article form http://www.top500.org/ and answer the questions
below.
a. Before reading: Discussion point.
Watch the “Morgan” movie trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJEzuYynaiw
a.1. What is the unique thing about this movie trailer?
 a.2. What kind of artificial intelligence (AI) device is specifically mentioned?
a.3. How did it complete the task?
a.4. What other tasks do you think this AI device can complete as well?

b. Read the text and complete the following exercises.

Incredible technology: How Supercomputers solve giant problems?

Today's supercomputers are marvels of computational power, and they are being used to tackle
some of the world's biggest scientific problems.
Current models are tens of thousands of times faster than the average desktop computer. In fact,
an ordinary computer does one thing at a time, so it does things in a distinct series of operations,
that's called serial processing. A modern supercomputer works much more quickly by splitting
problems into pieces and working on many pieces at once. This process is called parallel
processing. Parallel processing is more like what happens in our brains. Supercomputers normally
make use of customized compute units called blades, which usually house multiple nodes of CPUs,
GPUs.
A supercomputer has lots of processing units or nodes working together. Each of these nodes is
made by the components which are mostly similar to a PC or laptop, but how they're connected
together work simultaneously to solve the problem where calculation speed is more important than
anything. For example - the Cray XK6 built by powerful blades where each blade contains four
nodes. Each node houses a 16-core AMD Opteron CPU and Nvidia Tesla GPU, and 16 or 32GB
of RAM. These nodes are connected together with a proprietary interconnect. Multiple blades are
then stacked together in racks and allow for tens of thousands of nodes to be crammed into a large
room.
What sets supercomputers apart is the size and difficulty of the tasks they can tackle and solve.
Researchers have harnessed the number-crunching power of supercomputers to work on complex
problems in fields ranging from astrophysics to neuroscience.
These computational behemoths have been used to answer questions about the creation of the
universe during the Big Bang. Researchers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
simulated how the first galaxies formed, and scientists at NASA Ames Research Center in
Mountain View, Calif., simulated the birth of stars. Using computers like IBM's Roadrunner at
Los Alamos National Laboratory, physicists have probed the mysteries of dark matter, the
mysterious substance that makes up roughly 25 percent of the mass of the universe.
Weather forecasting is another area that relies heavily on supercomputing. For example,
forecasters used the TACC supercomputer Ranger to determine the path of Hurricane Ike in 2008,
improving the five-day hurricane forecast by 15 percent. Climate scientists use supercomputers to
model global climate change, a challenging task involving hundreds of variables.
Testing nuclear weapons has been banned in the United States since 1992, but supercomputer
simulations ensure that the nation's nukes remain safe and functional. IBM's Sequoia
supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is designed to replace
testing of nuclear explosions with improved simulations.
Increasingly, neuroscientists have turned their attention to the daunting task of modeling the
human brain. The Blue Brain project at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in
Switzerland, led by Henry Markram, aims to create a complete, virtual human brain. The project
scientists are using an IBM Blue Gene supercomputer to simulate the molecular structures of real
mammalian brains. In 2006, Blue Brain successfully simulated a complete column of neurons in
the rat brain.
The quintessential supercomputer typically consists of large datacenters filled with many machines
that are physically linked together. But distributed computing could also be considered a form of
supercomputing; it consists of many individual computers connected by a network (such as the
Internet) that devote some portion of their processing power to a large problem.
A well-known example is the SETI@home (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence at home)
project, in which millions of people run a program on their computers that looks for signs of
intelligent life in radio signals. Another is "Folding at home," a project to predict the 3D structure
of proteins — the biological workhorses that perform vital tasks in our bodies — from the sequence
of molecular chains from which they're made.
In the future, supercomputers will edge toward "exascale" capabilities — about 50 times faster
than current systems, Wells said. This will require greater energy, so energy efficiency will likely
become an important goal of future systems. “Another trend will be integrating large amounts of
data for applications like discovering new materials and biotechnologies”, Wells said.

Questions 1 – 4
Read the passage quickly and underline words 1-4. Then match them with their definitions,
a-d.
1. node a. beings that can learn and understand things
2. behemoth b. a point at which lines intersect
3. intelligent life c. a machine that operates without failing for long periods
4. workhorse d. something enormous and powerful
Can you find Vietnamese equivalences for these terms?

Questions 5 – 8
Read the text again and answer the following questions.
5. In order to solve the problems, supercomputers have to go through a phase called ...
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
6. In general, how many fields do supercomputers take part in and what are they?
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
7. Regarding space studies, what do supercomputers help people working at NASA discover?
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
8. For the project on human, what object do scientists utilize supercomputers to study?
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Question 9
Speaking skill – Presentation/Group-work: Based on the passage and your own knowledge,
create a visual aid (e.g. diagram) to show how supercomputers operate. Then give an example of
the application of supercomputers in real life with specific explanations.

Task 6. Prepare a short presentation on one kind/ some kinds of computers.