Casper College Computer Science Department Information

Casper College Computer Science Department Information

2010 Fall Semester Online Offerings in Computer Science at Casper College:

COSC1010 Introduction to Computer Science:

This course teaches how to program using the Visual Basic 2008 programming language, one of the most common programming languages used today. Students will tentatively use Microsoft Visual Basic Express or Studio 2008 (possibly 2010). Examples of Visual Basic source code and applications can

be viewed on the Visual Basic web page. Students taking Visual Basic should possess basic typing

skills. This is an introductory course where students will learn how to make professional looking programs that do all kinds of things and hopefully have a lot of fun along the way. Visual Basic allows you to quickly make programs which look great. Programs made in class will include spell checkers, address books, screen savers, games, etc. Visual Basic allows people to make programs to do some really powerful stuff. The Express Visual Basic programming environment is available at no cost through Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/ and is packaged with our course text Programming Using Visual Basic.NET 2008, Seventh Edition by David Schneider. This course is offered both in the Spring and Fall semesters.

COSC1030 Computer Science I:
Computer Science I is taught using the C++ language. Topics covered include function development, iteration, logic, and file saving. Examples of C++ code and applications can be viewed on the C++ web page. This course is intended to give students their first major step in the fundamental concepts of computer science which are used in all languages. More programs are made in C++ which are bought in the stores than any other language. Students taking this course should either have taken Introduction to Computer Science (or equivalent) or have had previous experience programming (i.e. writing html, etc) or have done well in mathematics. C++ is a great language to learn, and is the common language used in many college programs. It is also the language many professional applications are written in that you buy off the shelf. This is an introductory course in C++. However, other C++ online courses may be offered at a later date which may be more advanced or written visually. Free Versions of the C++ programming environment are available from several locations. For instance, Microsoft has its free Express edition of C++ at http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/ and BloodShed Software offers a very compact but good C++ programming package at http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html. The text is Problem Solving, Abstraction, Design Using C++, Fifth Edition from Addison Wesley. This course is offered both in the Spring and Fall semesters

American computer technology in the world

American computer technology in the world

Information Technology Staffing

ACT staffs high-quality information technology professionals for leading organizations primarily in the southeastern region of United States. ACT recruits professionals for contract, contract-to-hire and fulltime positions. Our software consulting jobs may be the opportunity you are searching for. We offer our clients only the very best of candidates that have undergone ACT's screening process. ACT combines IT Staffing services with our Solutions Services offerings, affording clients a full circle of software technology choices.

Information Technology Solutions

ACT Solutions Services offer clients a wide range of custom software consulting choices. Our commitment to quality and leading edge technology are made apparent in our customers satisfaction and long-term repeat business. More and more organizations are turning to outsourcing and project team solutions for their information technology needs. In order to maintain competitiveness, organizations opt to implement outsourcing IT services for an array of reasons such as obtaining specific skill-set expertise, project management leadership, and budget flexibility.

International Development of Computer Education

International Development of Computer Education

Toward the Creation of a Global Information Culture
Kyoto Computer Gakuin [KCG] was established in 1963 as the first private computer institute in Japan. At this time the curtain was raised on the computer, we foresaw great possibilities in the approaching information age, and believed that education of technicians in large numbers would build the foundation of the coming age. KCG was the first school in Japan to introduce education in Information Science. For the past years, KCG has been a leader in developing the culture of information science in Japan. In 1989, we began to transfer our pioneer spirit to countries in which computer education had not been made widely available. The program called International Development of Computer Education [IDCE] was born in the form of a donation of three thousand sets of KCG's used computers (two thousand sets of 8-bit, one thousand sets of 16 & 32-bit personal computers).
Before 1995, this program has been implemented for the countries of Thailand, Ghana, Poland, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Peru, and has accomplished successfuly. From 1995, we will start implementing the program for Malawi and China.
We found that it is a great pleasure to help other countries by the IDCE program with the role of a dispatcher of Japanese culture and a dispatcher of information culture. We also found and are hoping that this trend becomes a creation of global information culture.
Purpose
This program is designed for countries in which public access to computer technology is limited or non-existent. The goal of the program is to give the public, at large, access to simple computers, to teach them basic computer skills, and to promote more general computer education.
We believe that the spread of education in science and technology can be the key to a country's future economic independence and prosperity. Remembering KCG identity as a pioneer in developing education / information science in Japan, we wish to participate in the promotion of global computer education by passing on our own experience.
The program also aims to promote cultural exchange and friendship between Japan and participating countries, with computer education as a medium.
All the computers donated were those used in classes at KCG. As to other expenses, a large part of the funding has come from the Japan Exposition Commemoration Fund. Major Japan companies: UNISYS-Japan, TOSHIBA, NEC, HITACHI, and other independent organizations and individuals have also contributed to our project. Without such generous support, we would not have been able to realize this project.
Implementation of the Program
The fundamental program consists of the following five basic steps. (These may be modified, if necessary, to match the particular needs of the participating country.)
1. KCG donates some hundred sets of computers ["Donation"] to the government of the participating country ["Receiver"].
2. The Receiver is to be responsible for the maintenance and the distribution of Donation to schools throughout their country. (Some ten to twenty shall be placed at each selected school.)
3. KCG sends instructors to the partner country to offer an intensive course for selected teachers of the schools/institutions which will receive or have received Donation. KCG recruits and sends United States college students (mainly from Massachusetts Institute of Technology) as volunteer instructors along with KCG instructors. We try to include students whose home country is the same as that of the participating country in our group of instructors.
4. Participants learn how to operate Donation through various training programs offered by KCG. This technical training consists of a session in the partner country, followed by a session at KCG in Kyoto for selected trainees.
5. The Receiver conducts a computer education program in their selected schools for the general public.
After completion of the fundamental program, KCG and the Receiver are expected to try to continue to collaborate together, as much as possible, in order to promote the computer education of the Receiver's country. This collaboration may include continued exchanges of students and teachers, and/or more computer donations by KCG.
The program for China and Brunei are proceeding based on the special relationship between KCG and the universities.
Selected examples of actual development of IDCE are shown in the below. Thailand Cooperation initiated in 1989
To begin with the IDCE project, the following became a test case. In the Fall of 1989, two college students were invited to KCG, and were provided computer training workshop for two weeks. Through this experience we established a teaching skills for foreigners.
In June, 1990, three hundred fifty one sets of computers were donated to the Minister of Education. In July, the first on-site computer course was held at Bangkok. Some selected teachers in Thailand were invited to KCG and were provided the second computer course.
All the donated computers were utilized at twenty-two educational institute by the teachers who had workshop at KCG before. More than 3600 students a year were given education in information and computer science.
The Ministry of Education of Thailand expressed their appreciation saying "there has never been a program like IDCE", "IDCE program has created a computer railroad all over Thailand."
In February, 1992, the third international joint information science seminar was held for participants from Ghana, Poland and Thailand. The school received awards from the Thai Minister of Education for our contribution to the country. Computer education is now right on track with increasing budget of Thai government.
The highly successful result of our program prompted the Thai government and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to form a cooperative arrangement for further development. A workshop in multimedia technology was held at KCG for the computer engineers from Thailand for six month in 1994. An instructor from KCG has been sent to a university in Thailand as an expert by JICA for directing education in multimedia technology in 1996.
"Computers on Wheels", a new program where the National Science Center for Education would carry donated computers in two trailers and visit schools throughout Thailand, was implemented in 1996. KCG donated additional thirty 32-bit portable computers and sent two instructors. The first workshop was held at one of the most poor area of the country. At the opening ceremony of the program, KCG received an award from the Princess.

Computer science

Meaning of computer science

computation, and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems.[1][2][3][4] It is frequently described as the systematic study of algorithmic processes that create, describe, and transform information. Computer science has many sub-fields; some, such as computer graphics, emphasize the computation of specific results, while others, such as computational complexity theory, study the properties of computational problems. Still others focus on the challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to describe computations, while computer programming applies specific programming languages to solve specific computational problems, and human-computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to people.

Meaning of Computer

Meaning of Computer

Technically, a computer is a programmable machine. This means it can execute a programmed list of instructions and respond to new instructions that it is given. Today, however, the term is most often used to refer to the desktop and laptop computers that most people use. When referring to a desktop model, the term "computer" technically only refers to the computer itself -- not the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Still, it is acceptable to refer to everything together as the computer. If you want to be really technical, the box that holds the computer is called the "system unit."Some of the major parts of a personal computer (or PC) include the motherboard, CPU, memory (or RAM), hard drive, and video card. While personal computers are by far the most common type of computers today, there are several other types of computers. For example, a "minicomputer" is a powerful computer that can support many users at once. A "mainframe" is a large, high-powered computer that can perform billions of calculations from multiple sources at one time. Finally, a "supercomputer" is a machine that can process billions of instructions a second and is used to calculate extremely complex calculations.

Meaning of Computer Education

Meaning of Computer Education

Meaning of Computer Education Digital Evidence and Computer Crime Digital evidence--evidence that is stored on or transmitted by computers--can play a major role in a wide range of crimes, including homicide, rape, abduction, child abuse, solicitation of minors, child pornography, stalking, harassment, fraud, theft, drug trafficking, computer intrusions, espionage, meaning of computer education and terrorism. Though an increasing number of criminals are using computers meaning of computer education and computer networks, few investigators are well-versed in the evidentiary,

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what is a keyboard

What is a keyboard

In addition to standard flat keyboard layouts where all alphanumeric keys are grouped taogether, as was the case in virtually all typewriters, recent ergonomic keyboard designs feature creative key placement and shape. These keyboards are designed to increase user comfort, typing speed, and to reduce common ailments associated with prolonged keyboard use such as carpal tunnel syndrome. Most popular among the ergonomic keyboards is the split design, in which keys pressed by the left hand are physically separated from those pressed by the right hand. As much as ten centimeters may separate the key groups, providing a more natural hand position than a single group of keys does. Some ergonomic keyboards go so far as to offer two completely separate boards that can be positioned independently of one another. Other innovative keyboard designs include chorded keyboards, hand keyers, and Kanji tablets. Chorded keyboards typically have between 5 and 12 keys, which are pressed together in order to form letters in a fasion akin to guitar chording. Chorded keyboards are usually intended for one-hand use. Similar to the chorded keyboard is the hand keyer. While the operation of a hand keyer is comparable a chorded keyboard in that multiple fingers are used simultaneously in order to type a single letter, hand keyers are worn on the hand or arm instead of lying on a table. This makes them more comfortable for some users, as well as affording a certain amount of mobility for portable devices such as PDAs. Kanji and other tablets, which have super-small keying surfaces capable of supporting hundreds of characters in a reasonable amount of space, are designed for use with languages which have too many characters to assign an individual key on a conventional keyboard. This is typical of many Asian languages. Kanji tablets are now considered outdated, as more efficient text input systems have been designed which allow Asian character input on conventional-style keyboards. Keyboards designed for use with these systems have an additional 5 keys dedicated to interface with specialty character input software.

Definitions of computer mouse

Definitions of computer mouse

mouse: a hand-operated electronic device that controls the coordinates of a cursor on your computer screen as you move it around on a pad; on the bottom of the device is a ball that rolls on the surface of the pad; "a mouse takes much more room than a trackball"
In computing, a mouse (plural mice, mouses, or mouse devices.) is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons.

what is computer hardware

what is computer hardware

Hardware
The hardware are the parts of computer itself including the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and related microchips and micro-circuitry, keyboards, monitors, case and drives (hard, CD, DVD, floppy, optical, tape, etc...). Other extra parts called peripheral components or devices include mouse, printers, modems, scanners, digital cameras and cards (sound, colour, video) etc... Together they are often referred to as a personal computer.
Central Processing Unit - Though the term relates to a specific chip or the processor a CPU's performance is determined by the rest of the computer's circuitry and chips.
Currently the Pentium chip or processor, made by Intel, is the most common CPU though there are many other companies that produce processors for personal computers. Examples are the CPU made by Motorola and AMD.
With faster processors the clock speed becomes more important. Compared to some of the first computers which operated at below 30 megahertz (MHz) the Pentium chips began at 75 MHz in the late 1990's. Speeds now exceed 3000+ MHz or 3 gigahertz (GHz) and different chip manufacturers use different measuring standards (check your local computer store for the latest speed). It depends on the circuit board that the chip is housed in, or the motherboard, as to whether you are able to upgrade to a faster chip. The motherboard contains the circuitry and connections that allow the various component to communicate with each other.
Though there were many computers using many different processors previous to this I call the 80286 processor the advent of home computers as these were the processors that made computers available for the average person. Using a processor before the 286 involved learning a proprietary system and software. Most new software are being developed for the newest and fastest processors so it can be difficult to use an older computer system.
Keyboard - The keyboard is used to type information into the computer or input information. There are many different keyboard layouts and sizes with the most common for Latin based languages being the QWERTY layout (named for the first 6 keys). The standard keyboard has 101 keys. Notebooks have embedded keys accessible by special keys or by pressing key combinations (CTRL or Command and P for example). Ergonomically designed keyboards are designed to make typing easier. Hand held devices have various and different keyboard configurations and touch screens.
Some of the keys have a special use. There are referred to as command keys. The 3 most common are the Control or CTRL, Alternate or Alt and the Shift keys though there can be more (the Windows key for example or the Command key). Each key on a standard keyboard has one or two characters. Press the key to get the lower character and hold Shift to get the upper.
Removable Storage and/or Disk Drives - All disks need a drive to get information off - or read - and put information on the disk - or write. Each drive is designed for a specific type of disk whether it is a CD, DVD, hard disk or floppy. Often the term 'disk' and 'drive' are used to describe the same thing but it helps to understand that the disk is the storage device which contains computer files - or software - and the drive is the mechanism that runs the disk.
Digital flash drives work slightly differently as they use memory cards to store information so there are no moving parts. Digital cameras also use Flash memory cards to store information, in this case photographs. Hand held devices use digital drives and many also use memory cards.
Mouse - Most modern computers today are run using a mouse controlled pointer. Generally if the mouse has two buttons the left one is used to select objects and text and the right one is used to access menus. If the mouse has one button (Mac for instance) it controls all the activity and a mouse with a third button can be used by specific software programs.
One type of mouse has a round ball under the bottom of the mouse that rolls and turns two wheels which control the direction of the pointer on the screen. Another type of mouse uses an optical system to track the movement of the mouse. Laptop computers use touch pads, buttons and other devices to control the pointer. Hand helds use a combination of devices to control the pointer, including touch screens

Difference between CPU and GPU in parallel computing

Difference between CPU and GPU in parallel computing

CPU frequency growth is now limited by physical matters and high power consumption. Their performance is often raised by increasing the number of cores. Present day processors may contain up to four cores (further growth will not be fast), and they are designed for common applications, they use MIMD (multiple instructions / multiple data). Each core works independently of the others, executing various instructions for various processes.
Special vector features (SSE2 and SSE3) for four-component (single floating-point precision) and two-component (double precision) vectors appeared in general-purpose processors because of increased requirements of graphics applications in the first place. That's why it's more expedient to use GPUs for certain tasks, as they are initially designed for them.
For example, NVIDIA chips are based on a multiprocessor with 8-10 cores and hundreds of ALUs, several thousand registers and some shared memory. Besides, a graphics card contains fast global memory, which can be accessed by all multiprocessors, local memory in each multiprocessor, and special memory for constants.
Most importantly, these several multiprocessor cores in a GPU are SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) cores. And these cores execute the same instructions simultaneously. This programming style is common for graphics algorithms and many scientific tasks, but it requires specific programming. In return, this approach allows to increase the number of execution units by simplifying them.
So, let's enumerate the main differences between CPU and GPU architectures. CPU cores are designed to execute a single thread of sequential instructions with maximum speed, and GPUs are designed for fast execution of many parallel instruction threads. General-purpose processors are optimized for high performance of a single command thread processing integer and floating-point numbers. Random memory access.
CPU engineers try to have their products execute as many instructions in parallel as possible to increase performance. So Intel Pentium introduced superscalar execution of two instructions per cycle, and Pentium Pro added out-of-sequence execution of instructions. However, parallel execution of a sequential instruction thread has some basic limitations, and increasing the number of execution units does not yield proportional performance gains.

Main Parts Of A Computer

Main Parts Of A Computer

Processor (CPU) - The part of the computer that handles all processesand instructions supplied by memory unit (RAM)Memory (RAM) - Random Accessed Memory. The area of the computer thatholds the instructions (processes) and information system gives it.When you turn the computer off, everything in RAM disappears.Read Only Memory (ROM) - A chip or disk that holds information thatcannot be changed. Ex CD-ROM, DVD-ROMDisk drive - A mechanical device that you use to transfer informationback and forth between the computer's memory and a disk.Floppy disk (3.5") - A magnetically coated disk on which informationcan be stored and retrieved. Capacity is 1.44MB - requires aFloppy-DriveZip disk - A magnetically removable coated disk on which informationcan be stored and retrieved. Capacity is 100 or 250MB or more -requires a zip-driveHard disk - A large capacity storage area that offers access to storeand retrieve information, very slow compare to RAM.Monitor - A screen that displays the information in the computer.Keyboard - A device used to enter data and issue commands to thecomputer.Printer or Scanner - A devices that help to make hard copies o scandocuments into the computer.Mouse - A small, hand-held device used to control the pointer on thescreen.Software - Instructions that tell your computer how to perform a task.Software is stored on the disks in program files. Software cannot beseen or touched. There are two main kinds of software:* application software and* system softwareApplication software (program) - Software that does specific task,such as word processing. (Word, Power Point)System software - Software that the computer system or OS operatingsystem.Firmware - A kind of system software - instructions that are builtinto thecomputer system on ROM chips.

Introduction of CPU

Introduction of CPU

Devices to turn PCs into small supercomputers have been known for a long times already. Back in the 1980s the market offered so-called transputers to be installed into ISA expansion slots. At first their performance was impressive in certain applications. But then performance of general-purpose processors started to grow faster, they became stronger in parallel computing, so there was no point in using transputers anymore. However, such devices exist even now -- they are specialized accelerators. But their field of application is very narrow, and such accelerators are not widely spread.
However, parallel computing has already entered the mass market and 3D games. Universal devices with multi-core processors for parallel vector computing in 3D graphics reach high peak performance, CPUs cannot keep up with it. Of course, maximum performance is reached only in a number of convenient tasks and has some limits. But such devices are already widely used in the new fields they were not initially designed for. An excellent example of such parallel processors is Cell, designed by Sony-Toshiba-IBM for Sony PlayStation 3, as well as all modern graphics cards from market leaders -- NVIDIA and AMD.
We'll not touch upon Cell today, even though it had been launched earlier, and it's a general-purpose processor with additional vector features. The first GPGPU technologies (General-Purpose computation on GPUs) for 3D graphics cards appeared several years ago. Modern GPUs contain hundreds of arithmetic units, and their power can be used to accelerate a lot of compute-intensive applications. The existing generation of GPUs possesses a flexible architecture. Together with high-level programming languages and firmware architectures, such as the ones described in this article, it reveals these features and makes them much more accessible.
GPCPU was inspired by the appearance of relatively fast and flexible shader programs that can be executed by modern GPUs. Developers decided to employ GPUs not only for rendering in 3D applications, but also for other parallel computations. GPGPU used graphics APIs for this purpose: OpenGL and Direct3D. Data were fed to a GPU in the form of textures, and computing programs were loaded as shaders. This method had its shortcomings -- relatively high programming complexity, low data exchange rate between a CPU and a GPU, and other limitations to be described below.

When was the first computer invented?

When was the first computer invented?

Unfortunately this question has no easy answer because of all the different types of classifications and types of computers. Therefore this document has been created with a listing of each of the first computers starting with the first programmable computer leading up to the computers of today. Keep in mind that early inventions such as the abacus, calculators, tablet machines, difference machine, etc. are not accounted for in this document.
First programmable computer

The Z1 originally created by Germany's Konrad Zuse in his parents living room in 1936 to 1938 is considered to be the first electrical binary programmable computer.
See our Z1 dictionary definition for additional information about this computer.
The first digital computer

Short for Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the ABC started being developed by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry in 1937 and continued to be developed until 1942 at the Iowa State College (now Iowa State University). On October 19, 1973, US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision that the ENIAC patent by Eckert and Mauchly was invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer.
See our ABC dictionary definition for additional information about this computer.
The ENIAC was invented by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania and began construction in 1943 and was not completed until 1946. It occupied about 1,800 square feet and used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighing almost 50 tons. Although the Judge ruled that the ABC computer was the first digital computer many still consider the ENIAC to be the first digital computer.
See our ENIAC dictionary definition for additional information about this computer.
Because of the Judge ruling and because the case was never appealed like most we consider the ABC to be the first digital computer. However, because the ABC was never fully functional we consider the first functional digital computer to be the ENIAC.
The first transistor computer

The TX-O (Transistorized Experimental computer) and first transistorized computer is demonstrated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956.
The first stored program computer
The early British computer known as the EDSAC is considered to be the first stored program electronic computer. The computer performed its first calculation on May 6, 1949 and was the computer that ran the first graphical computer game.
See our EDSAC dictionary definition for additional information about this computer.
The first minicomputer

In 1960 Digital Equipment Corporation released its first of many PDP computers the PDP-
The first personal computer
In 1975 Ed Roberts coined the term personal computer when he introduced the Altair 8800. Although the first personal computer is considered to be the Kenback-1, which was first introduced for $750 in 1971. The computer relied on a series of switches for inputting data and output data by turning on and off a series of lights.
The Micral is considered the be the first commercial non-assembly computer. The computer used the Intel 8008 processor and sold for $1,750 in 1973.
The first workstation

Although never sold the first workstation is considered to be the Xerox Alto, introduced in 1974. The computer was revolutionary for its time and included a fully functional computer, display, and mouse. The computer operated like many computers today utilizing windows, menus and icons as an interface to its operating system.
The first laptop or portable computer
The first portable computer or laptop is considered to be the Osborne I, a portable computer developed by Adam Osborne that weighed 24 pounds, a 5-inch display, 64 KB of memory, two 5 1/4" floppy drives, and a modem.
IBM PCD later released the IBM portable in 1984, it's first portable computer that weighed in at 30 pounds. IBM PCD later announced in 1986 it's first laptop computer, the PC Convertible, weighing 12 pounds. And in 1994 introduces the IBM ThinkPad 775CD, the first notebook with an integrated CD-ROM.