Chapter 1 Key Terms:

Agricultural Age:	The era covering most of the past ten thousand years, during which humanity lived mainly by domesticating animals and growing food using plows and other agricultural tools. Example: before technology.
Application Program (application):	Software tool that allows a computer to be used for specific purposes. Example: Application programs game or tools to help you out.
Browsers:	Programs such as Internet Explorer and Firefox that serve as navigable windows into the Web. Example: Browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox.
Desktop Computer:	A personal computer designed to be set up on a desk or table and used in that place for an extended period of time. Example: Personal computer that sits on your desk.
Digital Divide:	A term that describes the divide between the people who do and do not have access to the Internet.
Electronic Mail (E-mail):	Allows Internet users to send mail messages, data files, and software programs to other Internet users and to users of most commercial networks and online services. Example:  Transfer files and exchange
Embedded System:	A computer that is embedded into a consumer product, such as a wristwatch or game machine, to enhance those products. Also used to control hardware devices. Example: A microprocessor used as a component of a larger system.
Firmware:	A program, usually for special-purpose computers, stored on a ROM chip so it cannot be altered. Example: Immortalized on a silicon chip.
Hypertext Link:	A Web connection to another document or site, like the many that loosely tie together millions of Web pages. Example: Tie together millions of web pages.
Industrial Age:	The recent modern era, characterized by the shift from farms to factories. Example: Industrial revolution.
Industrial Revolution:	The era of rapid advances in machine technology that began at the end of the eighteenth century and ushered in the industrial age. Example: Advances in machine technology triggered.
Information Age:	The current era, characterized by the shift from an industrial economy to an information economy and the convergence of computer and communication technology. Example: working with words, numbers and ideas.
Integrated Circuit:	A chip containing hundreds, thousands, or even millions of transistors. Example: Computers that were even smaller and more powerful than the transistor-based machines.
Internet:	A global interconnected network of thousands of networks linking academic, research, government, and commercial institutions, and other organizations and individuals. Also known as the Net. Example: As the network evolved, it became known as the internet.
Laptop Computer:	A flat-screen, battery-powered portable computer that you can rest on your lap. Example: Sometimes called a notebook computer is a personal computer.
Mainframe Computer:	Expensive, room-sized computer, used mostly for large computing jobs. Example: Microcomputer revolution most information processing was done on mainframe computers.
Microprocessor:	Now known as a personal computer. Example: Intel engineers first Microprocessor
Moore’s Law:	The prediction made in 1965 by Gordon Moore that the power of a silicon chip of the same price would double about every 18 months for at least two decades. Example: digital possible because of Moore’s Law
Network:	A computer system that links two or more computers. Example: Microprocessor and impact has been magnified by the development of networks
Notebook computer:	Another term for laptop computer. Example: Laptop sometimes called a notebook computer.
Paradigm Shift:	A change in thinking that results in a new way of seeing the world. Example: Humankind experienced a paradigm shift.
Peripherals:	An external device, such as a keyboard or monitor, connected via cables to the system central processing unit. Example: External drives, keyboard, mice referred to as peripherals
Personal Computer (PC):	A small, powerful, relatively low-cost microcomputer. Example: Common in offices, factories, homes, schools.
Personal Digital Assistant (PDA):	A pocket-sized computer used to organize appointments, tasks, notes, contacts, and other personal information. Sometimes called handheld computer or palmtop computer. Many PDAs include additional software and hardware for wireless communication. Example: Pocket Pc
Server:	A computer especially designed to provide software and other resources to other computers over a network. Example: Servers provides other computers connected.
Silicon Chip:	Hundreds of transistors packed into an integrated circuit on a piece of silicon. Example: Silicon chip containing hundreds of transistors.
Silicon Valley:	The area around San Jose, California, that has become a hotbed of the computer industry since the 1970s, when dozens of microprocessor manufacturing companies sprouted and grew there. Example: California’s San Jose Nickname Silicon Valley.
Subnotebooks:	Portable computers, smaller than a notebook or laptop, about the size of a hardbound book. Example: Extra light notebook sometimes called Subnotebooks.
Supercomputers:	A super-fast, super-powerful, and super-expensive computer used for applications that demand maximum power. Example: Superpowerful computers are called Supercomputers.
Terminal:	Combination keyboard and screen that transfers information to and from a mainframe computer. Example: Communicate with a mainframe using a computer terminal.
Thin Client:	Network computers, Internet appliances, or other devices designed to connect to the Internet but not perform all the other tasks performed by a PC. Example: Communicate with a mainframe using a Thin client.
Timesharing:	Technique by which mainframe computers communicate with several users simultaneously. Example: Mainframe computer communicate with several users thought technique called Timesharing.
Transistor:	An electronic device that performs the same function as the vacuum tube by transferring electricity across a tiny resistor. Example: Transistor first used as a substitute for the vacuum tube.
Workstation:	A high-end desktop computer with massive computing power, though less expensive than a minicomputer. Workstations are the most powerful of the desktop computers. Example: A high end desktop computer with massive computing power.
World Wide Web (Web):	Part of the Internet, a collection of multimedia documents created by organizations and users worldwide. Documents are linked in a hypertext Web that allows users to explore them with simple mouse clicks. Example: The most significant breakthrough.