Outline for April 6, 2007

Question: Do you find it easier to keep track of your schedule on a computer, cell phone, paper, or in your head?

1. Greetings and felicitations!
   1. Lab exercise 1 due tonight at 11:59PM
   2. Prospectus due in class on Monday
2. Operating system configuration
   1. Linux/UNIX systems: based on numerous configuration files scattered throughout system
   2. Windows: uses registry; keys are are indices used to look up information
      1. HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT: how system treats files based on extension
      2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER: individual settings for this user, such as screen color
      3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE: the hardware and software, including configuration information and past hardware
      4. HKEY_USERS: generic information, such as about user profiles and the desktop before users log in
      5. HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG: configuration information about the current hardware and software
3. Ideas behind transistors
   1. Review binary system, bits
   2. Transistors combine to manipulate numbers, add them, and otherwise change them
4. Transistors and RAM
   1. Writing data to RAM
   2. Reading data from RAM
5. How a computer adds
   1. AND gate
   2. OR gate
   3. XOR gate
   4. Half adder
   5. Full adder