Computer Organization

Some Historic Perspective (continued)

User interface and I-O devices: switches and wires; paper and magnetic tape; keypunches and card-readers; monitors and keyboards; batch computing and job control languages; interactive systems and command-line interfaces; fixed and removable disks, optical disks; the mouse, point-and-click, menus, windows; audio and video; virtual reality devices.

Dominant applications: numerical simulation; data processing and database information retrieval and exchange; entertainment; communication.