The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computing: Computing – activity of using and improving computer hardware and computer software.
Branches of computing Computer science (see also Outline of computer science) Information technology – refers to the application (esp in businesses and other organisations) of computer science, that is, its use by mankind (see also Outline of information technology) Information systems – refers to the study of the application of IT to business processes Computer engineering (see also Outline of computer engineering) Software engineering (see also Outline of software engineering)
Computer science Computer science – (outline)
Computer science Theory of computation Scientific computing Metacomputing Autonomic computing
Computers
See information processor for a high-level block diagram.
Computer Computer hardware History of computing hardware Processor design Computer network Computer performance by orders of magnitude
Instruction-level taxonomies After the commoditization of memory, attention turned to optimizing CPU performance at the instruction level. Various methods of speeding up the fetch-execute cycle include:
designing instruction set architectures with simpler, faster instructions: RISC as opposed to CISC Superscalar instruction execution VLIW architectures, which make parallelism explicit
Software
Software engineering Computer programming Computational Software patent Firmware System software Device drivers Operating systems Utilities Application Software Databases Geographic information system Spreadsheet Word processor Programming languages interpreters Compilers Assemblers Speech recognition Speech synthesis
History of computing History of computing History of computing hardware from the tally stick to the quantum computer History of computer science History of computer animation History of computer graphics History of computer networking History of computer vision Punched card Unit record equipment IBM 700/7000 series IBM 1400 series IBM System/360 History of IBM magnetic disk drives
Business computing Accounting software Computer-aided design Computer-aided manufacturing Computer-aided dispatch Customer relationship management Data warehouse Decision support system Electronic data processing Enterprise resource planning Geographic information system Hospital information system Human resource management system Management information system Material requirements planning Product Lifecycle Management Strategic enterprise management Supply chain management Utility Computing
Human factors Accessible computing Computer-induced medical problems Computer user satisfaction Human-computer interaction (outline) Human-centered computing
Computer network
Wired and wireless computer network
Types Wide area network Metropolitan area network City Area Network Village Area Network Local area network Wireless local area network Mesh networking Collaborative workspace Internet Network management
Computing technology based wireless networking (CbWN) The main goal of CbWN is to optimize the system performance of the flexible wireless network.
Source coding Codebook design for side information based transmission techniques such as Precoding Wyner-Ziv coding for cooperative wireless communications Security Dirty paper coding for cooperative multiple antenna or user precoding Intelligence Game theory for wireless networking Cognitive communications Flexible sectorization, Beamforming and SDMA Software Software defined radio (SDR) Programmable air-interface Downloadable algorithm: e.g., downloadable codebook for Precoding
Computer security Cryptology – cryptography – information theory Cracking – demon dialing – Hacking – war dialing – war driving Social engineering – Dumpster diving Physical security – Black bag job Computer security Computer surveillance Defensive programming Malware Security engineering
Data
Numeric data Integral data types – bit, byte, etc. Real data types: Floating point (Single precision, Double precision, etc.) Fixed point Rational number Decimal Binary-coded decimal (BCD) Excess-3 BCD (XS-3) Biquinary-coded decimal representation: Binary – Octal – Decimal – Hexadecimal (hex) Computer mathematics – Computer numbering formats
Character data storage: Character – String – text representation: ASCII – Unicode – Multibyte – EBCDIC (Widecharacter, Multicharacter) – FIELDATA – Baudot
Other data topics Data compression Digital signal processing Image processing Data management Routing Data Protection Act
Classes of computers
There are several terms which describe classes, or categories, of computers:
Analog computer Calculator Desktop computer Desktop replacement computer Digital computer Embedded computer Home computer Laptop Mainframe Minicomputer Microcomputer Personal computer Portable computer Personal digital assistant (aka PDA, or Handheld computer) Programmable logic controller or PLC Server Smartphone Supercomputer Tablet computer Video game console Workstation
Organizations
Companies – current Apple Asus Avaya Dell Fujitsu Gateway Computers Groupe Bull HCL Hewlett-Packard Hitachi, Ltd. Intel Corporation IBM Lenovo Microsoft NEC Corporation Novell Panasonic Red Hat Silicon Graphics Sun Microsystems Unisys
Companies – historic Acorn, bought by Olivetti Amdahl Corporation, bought by Fujitsu Bendix Corporation Burroughs Corporation, merged with Sperry to become Unisys Compaq, bought by Hewlett-Packard Control Data Cray Data General Digital Equipment Corporation, bought by Compaq, later bought by Hewlett-Packard Digital Research – produced system software for early Intel microprocessor-based computers Elliott Brothers English Electric Company Ferranti General Electric, computer division bought by Honeywell, then Bull Honeywell, computer division bought by Bull ICL Leo Lisp Machines, Inc. Marconi Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems produced the first widely sold microcomputer system (kit and assembled) Nixdorf Computer, bought by Siemens Norsk Data Olivetti Osborne Packard Bell PERQ Prime Computer Raytheon Royal McBee RCA Scientific Data Systems, sold to Xerox Siemens Sinclair Research, created the ZX Spectrum, ZX80, and ZX81 Southweat Technical products Corporation produced microcomputers systems (kit and assembled), peripherals, and software based on Motorola 6800 and 6809 microcomputer chips Sperry, which bought UNIVAC, and later merged with Burroughs to become Unisys Symbolics UNIVAC Varian Data Machines, a division of Varian Associates which was bought by Sperry Wang
Professional organizations Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Association for Survey Computing (ASC) British Computer Society (BCS) Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) Computer Measurement Group (CMG) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), in particular the IEEE Computer Society Institution of Electrical Engineers International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
Standards bodies
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Open standards bodies See also Open standard
Apdex Alliance – Application Performance Index Application Response Measurement (ARM)
Computing publications Digital Bibliography & Library Project – as of July 2007, lists over 910,000 bibliographic entries on computer science and several thousand links to the home pages of computer scientists.
Persons influential in computing Major figures associated with making personal computers popular.
Microsoft Bill Gates Paul Allen Apple Inc. Steve Jobs Steve Wozniak
External links
FOLDOC: the Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing