I was helping my grade school son review for his computer
quiz and the topic was about input and output devices. There was a section in
the book that asks them to invent an input device and my son proudly said that
he was the only one in class who has a new idea (a keymouse which is a mouse
with keys so his hands don't have to move much when playing minecraft) while
his classmates just copied what were in the previous pages. Proud daddy!
So I began by explaining the difference between input and
output devices and took the time to explain how they work. I tried to suggest
other input devices but I couldn’t think of an example until I realized that
the iphone has a touch screen as the input device. I explained to him that
iphones have CPUs and the screen is both the input and output device. I then mentioned
Siri as another example of an input device – voice command. Our lesson ended with
us giving commands to Siri and laughing at the responses.
Looking back at that episode made me think. Is the
smartphone a computer with phone capability or a phone with computer capabilities?
This is in light of the fact that I only have a few minutes average talk time on
my phone while I spend hours per day using it for browsing, email and games!
So what makes a computer, well, a computer? Here’s a
breakdown:
- Processor
- Memory
- Storage
- Input devices
- Output devices
- Operating system
- Applications
Can you name one that your smartphone doesn’t have?
/royc
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