TABLE OF CONTENTS In this chapter, we reach our first goal. We can now really understand a laptop computer. From our work in the previous chapters, we understand the materials that make up the various parts of a laptop whether they are polymer, metal, liquid crystal, crystalline or amorphous, pure or doped. We also understand how the semiconductors inside work and how the basic logic gates that make up the computer function. Thus, we can see how many modern technologies and their underlying sciences make the laptop computer possible.
This chapter discusses a specific laptop and connects the terminology found in the owner s manual with that discussed in earlier chapters. The goals are twofold: First, to see and understand the connections between the science, the technology and the end product. Second, to understand the terminology used when talking about computers.
Almost any laptop computer will be outdated [1] in six months to a year due to the ever increasing complexity and computational power of microprocessors. Thus, the laptop that has been chosen is merely illustrative, and provides a concrete example for the discussion. It was top-of-the-line when this chapter was originally drafted.
[1]Still, like used cars, such laptops have a long service life if cared for properly.
We will now take all of the components discussed in the earlier chapters and put them together as a single high-tech consumer product. Many consumer products incorporate semiconductors and integrated circuits, digital electronics and microprocessors, electric conductors and insulators, high...
