This assignment is due at the beginning of your discussion section on Wednesday, November 5.

Summary: In this assignment you will gain familiarity with the components and configurations of personal computers.

(a) There are many ways to describe a computer. Take the computer you are using now (in the lab or at home) and determine as many of the following characteristics as you can:

To learn where to find this information, feel free to consult with your TA, your classmates, or others; just remember that you may need to know how to find it on your own later on.

(b) Find on the Internet the best price for a computer that's as close as possible to the one you described. In most cases this will be a used computer; if your machine is still sold new, that's also fine. Find at least two web pages that show prices for the comparable system and print them out along with your description. Where you can't find identical components (i.e., the same make and model), substitute equivalent ones (e.g., with the same capacity or speed).

Along with your description from part (a), turn in the web pages you printed, a description of the comparable machine you found, where you found it, its price, and any differences between your machine and the comparable machine. Submit this on paper.


Written by David G. Kay, Summer 1999; revised Fall 1999, Fall 2000, Fall 2001 and Fall 2003.



David G. Kay, 406B Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3425 -- (949) 824-5072 -- Fax (949) 824-4056 -- Email kay@uci.edu

Sunday, October 19, 2003 -- 7:39 PM