At this stage the hardware and software which will be used in the new system needs to be considered.

For both of these there will be many alternatives available. The designer tries to select the best hardware and most appropriate software.

On this page: [ hardware | software | user interfaces ]

Hardware

The output that is required will often determine the hardware to be used; display panels for changing or temporary data; printers/plotters for more permanent storage or for taking away from the system. These issues will be discussed in Topic 3 under the descriptions of hardware that you need to know about.

In the context of the dossier you will probably find your solution is somewhat limited by the facilities available. You may not have access to graphics tablets or bar code readers. Sometimes it is possible to produce a simulation - for example if you are planning a system which displays data from a cricket/baseball game as it progresses you could use a VDU on a pc to "simulate" the billboard; If you are planning a robot arm movement you can print the movement commands at the terminal.

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Software

This refers to both the software which will be used to implement the processing and any data types and structures that need to be defined for the storage of data in primary or secondary memory.

In your dossier you have to code the program from scratch and decide on data types and structures yourself. This will be discussed as part of your initial system design . It is an excellent idea to keep a logbook or blog so that you can discuss the data types and structures you could have used as well as those you eventually did.

When designing commercial systems three types of software are usually identified:

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HCI and User Interfaces

Human-computer interaction is an important field; it has been realized that having humans adapt themselves to the vagaries of computer systems programmers designs is not the best use of their skills. The trick nowadays is to try to get systems which are intuitive to use - both software and hardware.

Traditional user interfaces for our pc and similar console-based systems have been Command Line Interfaces and Graphical User interfaces.

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related: [ systems home | Systems Flow Charts | Fair Trade Scenario ]

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