[12.6] Hardware Trends of the Late 1990s
- Palmtop (handheld) computers -- Small portable
computers weighing one pound or less.
-
Personal digital
assistants (PDAs) -- Palmtop
computers with handwriting recognition and wireless infrared
communications designed to adapt to the user's style of working.
They lack keyboards and standard electrical connections of
desktop computers.
- Network computers -- New
simpler designs without
massive operating systems designed specifically for Internet
access, e-mail, and video game playing.
- RISC (reduced instruction set computing) processors -- New
powerful microprocessors with fewer and simpler instructions but still
capable of performing complex tasks by combining simple instructions
and reducing processing time.