$1.$ What similarities exist in mechanical, electrical, and optical methods of computation?

$2.$ What shortcomings of mechanical computation did the introduction of electronic computing devices address?

$3.$ What shortcomings of electrical computation will optical computing devices address?

$4.$ What is a CPU? What is its primary components?

$5.$ What are registers? What are their functions?

$6.$ What is main memory? How does it differ from registers?

$7.$ What are the differences between primary and secondary storage?

$8.$ How does a workstation differ from a desktop computer?

$9.$ How does a super computer differ from a mainframe computer?

$10.$ Describe three types of multicomputer configurations. What are their comparative advantages and disadvantages?

$11.$ What classes of computer systems are normally used for servers?

$12.$ What is Grosch$$s Law? Does it hold today? Why or why not?

$13.$ How can a computer system be tuned to a particular application?

$14.$ What characteristics differentiate application software from system software?

$15.$ In what ways do system software make developing application easier?

$16.$ Why has the development of system software paralleled the development of computer hardware?

$17.$ List at least five types of resources that computers on a local area network or wide area network can share.